dge of the harder metals, flint and such-like
substances were invaluable as the only material that could be fashioned
into weapons of defence, and used to shape such rude clothing as was
then employed. The scarcity of flint must have rendered these weapons of
great value in other districts. Splitting, chipping, and polishing, and
this with tools as rude as the material worked on, were the only means
of manufacturing such articles; and yet such was the perfection, and, if
the expression be applicable, the amount of artistic skill attained,
that it seems probable flint-chipping was a special trade, and doubtless
a profitable one to those engaged in it.

When flints were used as arrows, either in battle or in the chase, a bow
was easily manufactured from the oak and birch trees with which the
island was thickly wooded. It was bent by a leathern thong, or the
twisted intestine of some animal. The handles of the lance or
javelin--formidable weapons, if we may judge from the specimens in the
Museum of the Royal Irish Academy--were also formed of wood; but these
have perished in the lapse of ages, and left only the strangely and
skilfully formed implement of destruction.

Among primitive nations, the tool and the weapon differed but little.
The hatchet which served to fell the tree, was as readily used to cleave
open the head of an enemy. The knife, whether of stone or hard wood,
carved the hunter's prey, or gave a deathstroke to his enemy. Such
weapons or implements have, however, frequently been found with metal
articles, under circumstances which leave little doubt that the use of
the former was continued long after the discovery of the superior value
of the latter. Probably, even while the Tuatha De Danann artificers were
framing their more refined weapons for the use of nobles and knights,
the rude fashioner of flint-arrows and spear-heads still continued to
exercise the craft he had learned from his forefathers, for the benefit
of poorer or less fastidious warriors.

[Illustration: CROMLECH IN THE PHOENIX PARK.
The urn and necklace, figured at page 154, were found in this tomb.]

[Illustration: CLONDALKIN ROUND TOWER.]

FOOTNOTES:

[144] _Authors_.--Strabo, l. iv. p. 197; Suetonius, _V. Cla._; Pliny,
_Hist. Nat._ l. xxv. c. 9. Pliny mentions having seen the serpent's egg,
and describes it.

[145] _Virgil_.--_Ec._. 6, v. 73.

[146] _Year_.--Dio. Sic. tom. i. p. 158.

[147] _Magi_.--Magi is always used in Latin