copper. Instead it seems to call to mind the clang of hammers on
helmet or anvil, or shield or tool, according to whether it is a time
of war or peace--and in the Iron Age there was indeed very little of
peace that did not look a great deal more like war.

In the Forest, many times as far from the land where Umpl lived as one
could see from the tallest tree top, there lived a boy--a chief's son.
His name was Ulf, the son of Urgan, who was the son of Umpleton, who,
as you will remember, was the grandson of Umpl. It was thus a very
long time after Umpl's day; and yet, here is a very curious thing:
Umpl had blue eyes and black eyebrows and hair; so had Ulf! Umpl had a
nose with a little rise in the bridge of it, like a curve; so had Ulf!
Umpl's ears had been of a longer, narrower pattern than those of his
mates; Ulf had the same style of narrow ear on each side of his head;
and just as Umpl thought, and dreamed a little, and planned, and
looked far ahead to what he might do as the leader of a band of
warriors if he could bring them to reason, instead of shooting them
all with his bow and arrows when the wolves had them treed,--so now in
their games Ulf was the one who did the planning. He was the one who
was leader in them all. And in all the village, boy though he was,
except his father, or grandfather Umpleton, no man could take a bit of
iron, or of copper and make a better spearhead or a finer bracelet. He
had his own small kit of tools, most of which he had made himself. He
had in his father's hut the Iron Star, which served as his anvil and
which he thought turned out better work than any other. And just as
clearly as though he had read it in a book he knew the story of that
Star, from the day it fell from the skies down to his own time. Father
had told it to son, son to his son, and so on to Ulf's young day. That
was the way in which people were taught history before the days of
books.