with a stone hammer. Sometimes the point was the part first wrought, sometimes the base. Not seldom, the thickest portion of the flake operated upon was chosen as the part from which the point was fashioned. Oftener perhaps, it was the reverse, more especially in the making of the larger examples. Sometimes one side was finished before the other was commenced. At other times the faces were dressed alternately chip about. Evans says that, as a rule, in England1 "barbed flint arrowheads were finished at their points, and approximately brought into shape at their bases, before the notches were worked to form the central tang and develop the barbs." An interesting example, showing that a different method of procedure was adopted in this country, has just come under my notice. It is represented by fig. 56. It is the half of a split pebble, with the bulb of percussion on the face and the weathered

FIG 56

surface on the back. At the thin end a tang and two barbs have been carefully worked on both sides. The portions designed for the body and point are still untouched. Unfinished arrow-heads of this sort, or indeed of any sort, are by no means abundant. From those which I have examined no general rules as to the method of procedure can be deduced.

Only two examples have as yet been met with in Ireland of arrow-heads attached to their shafts. One was found on a wooden togher, or road, along with a bone pick in the bog of Ballykillen, barony of Coolestown, King's County. The shaft was of briar wood, and a portion of the gut tying was attached to it. It is figured by Wilde in the Catalogue of the Royal Irish Academy, page 254, fig. 164. The second was found by a man named William M'Fetridge, when cutting turf in Kanestown Bog, in the townland of Carnalbanagh, about half-way between Glenarm and Ballymena in the Co. Antrim. It has been described and figured by Mr. W. James Knowles, M.R.I.A., in the Journal of the Royal Historical and Archæological Association of Ireland, No. 63, July, 1885. In this instance also the shaft was bound round with gut, or sinew, for several inches below the head. Mr. Knowles is of the opinion that the latter was secured in its place by some kind of cement, or glue, as well.

Of arrow-heads found in association with other antiquities much might be written. They sometimes occur in burial urns of the so-called Bronze Age. In the Ulster Journal of Archæology for January, 1856, there is a

"Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Instruments of Great Britain,"

p. 344.

record of the discovery of an urn containing burnt bones, and two flint arrow-heads at Ballynehatty, adjoining the Giant's Ring, Co. Down. No description of them is given.

In the new issue of the same Journal for January, 1895-just come to hand whilst this Paper is being revised-Mr. William James Knowles, M.R.I.A., gives details of the finding of three stemmed arrow-heads, with barbs in a burial urn at Fenaghy sand-pit, near Cully backey, Co. Antrim, and of one leaf-shaped arrow-head, which he was informed had been obtained from a sepulchral vessel discovered at Kells, in the same county.

A writer who styles himself " A Cornish Man," informs us in the course of an article on Irish Antiquities, contained in the Ulster Journal of Archæology for October, 1857, that he saw an urn containing burnt bones and a flint arrow-head, which had been found near Drogheda.

In the same Journal for April, 1885, Mr. James Carruthers figures seven, found by himself in a field in the townland of Kilmakee, near Dunmurry, Co. Antrim, where a short time before three urns had been dug up. He describes them as "of a rare shape"; but if we are to judge them by the illustrations, it is questionable whether they are arrow-heads at all in the proper sense of the term.

Three instances have come under my notice of their having been met with in stone cists, or close beside them :

(a). In 1858, Rev. A. T. Lee, D.D., opened a tumulus at Bella Hill, Carrickfergus, and found "several rude specimens of flint arrow-heads" in the clay just outside the cist in which the interment had taken placeUlster Journal of Archæology, No. 22, for April, 1858.

(b). Some years before his death, the late Canon John Grainger, D.D., examined the Ticloy Cromlech, Co. Antrim, and found in the chamber a leaf-shaped arrow-head. Unfortunately it cannot now be identified.

(c). Mr. Rotherham met with the half of a stemmed arrow-head without barbs in a cairn on the Lough Crew Hills, Co. Meath. In a letter to George Coffey, Esq., who has kindly sent me an extract from it, he says, under date 28th November, 1893 :-"I tried if anything was to be had in Cairn U (see Conwell's Map), and found a bit of a broken arrowhead of black flint in the west chamber, and fragments of an urn in the north chamber. The floor of the chamber was covered with small broken stones, and at the point indicated was a hollow among them containing the bits of urn which were ornamented with parallel curved lines, made, I should think, with the finger nail."

They have also been found in association with bronze alone, or with bronze and iron together. The Rev. S. A. Brenan, Rector of Cushendun, recently sent me an arrow-head, stemmed and barbed, over three and a-half inches in length, but somewhat injured, and accompanying it a beautiful bronze blade, five and a-half inches long and two broad at the base where there are five rivet holes for attachment to the handle, four

of which still retain the rivets. The two were found together on Carrymurphy Mountain, near Garron Tower, Co. Antrim, at a depth of five feet in peat, which had previously been cut over for fuel.

Also, the Rev. James O'Laverty, M.R.I.A., records in the Ulster Journal of Archæology for April, 1857, the finding of a large number along with bronze weapons of various kinds in the bed of the Lower Bann at Portglenone during the progress of the public works undertaken some years before in order to improve the navigation of the river. Little attention has been paid to his observations, yet they are of considerable importance. He says: "The original bed of the Bann, at the place mentioned, consisted principally of a whitish clay, over which, in process of time a quantity of sand and small stones, rolled down by the water, had formed a stratum varying in depth from six to fourteen inches: in this were deposited a vast number of ancient weapons and other objects of antiquity, the depths at which they were found corresponding, it may reasonably be concluded, with the relative ages of the classes of antiquities to which they belong. Arrow-heads made of a light grey flint were, as a class, found at the greatest depth. These were of two kinds, the barbed and the lozenge-shaped; but each exhibited an equal skill in their manufacture. Specimens of both kinds were found in great abundance. However, I should say that the lozenge-shaped arrow-heads were more numerous. I have mentioned that the grey flint arrow-head was, as a class, found at the greatest depth. To this I saw one very marked exception, where a thin triangular piece of bronze, a javelin head, or the blade of a knife, having three holes, by which it was secured to the shaft, and weighing half-an-ounce was found with a cruciform weapon of grey flint; near this, but in a higher stratum, were deposited several barbed arrow-heads of flint.

"The brass and bronze articles were found in a stratum immediately above that of the flint arrowheads. They were mostly military weapons, consisting of leaf-shaped swords, and a few swords partaking of the nature of a dagger, a bronzed scabbard, bronze skians, and a great number of spear-heads, some of which had lateral loops, and others rivetholes; and in the sockets of many of them portions of the wooden shafts still remained, but greatly decayed.

"The black cuneiform stone hatchets, and a kind of rude spear-head of red flint, according to the evidence afforded by their position, must be the most modern of all the ancient weapons previous to the introduction of iron. Many of them were found on the surface of the river's bed, and none were found below the bronze articles."

Then, too, in the course of the investigations conducted by myself at Moylarg Crannog, a triangular arrow-head, of the sub-class, indented or notched, was found in conjunction with a variety of articles in bronze and iron. See The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. iii., page 27, Fifth Series.

Arrow-heads are still regarded by many of our peasantry as the missiles of elves and fairies. They are also used, just for this very reason, I suppose, to cure cattle which are looked upon as bewitched. Cows in this condition give milk which will not yield butter, no matter how much it is churned. Nothing but froth comes to the surface. The spae wife, or some other person, who can work the charm, usually called the "gentle doctor," is sent for, She brings with her an arrow-head or two. Water is boiled in a pot into which these have been put. Soot, salt, meal or bran, and other ingredients are added; and when the bewitched animals have drunk the preparation, "and well-licked the elfstones," the cure is complete. And in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it really is; the explanation of the whole affair being just this that the abnormal state of the milk is due to the action of a particular plant, which when eaten and assimilated acts injuriously upon it, and by altering its constituents renders it incapable of yielding butter. The ingredients of the pot neutralise this action and restore the milk to its normal state. What the plant is I do not know. I have tried to find it out, but have failed. That it is a plant, however, which produces the disordered condition of the milk I am referring to I am certain. The person effecting a cure invariably enjoins the owner of the cattle treated by him to change the pasture, or else to keep either a donkey or a goat. The reason for this is clear. The plant, whatever it is, grows in some pastures, not in others; and the donkey or goat will eat it readily and without any bad effects following, thus removing it out of the way of the milk cattle.

Not long ago an arrow-head which had been thus used for curing cows came into my possession. It was given me by a woman in my neighbourhood, on her dying bed. Her mother had handed it down to her. Aware that she had it, and knowing something also of its history, I had several times hinted to her that I should be glad to have it as an addition to my collection. She took little or no notice, however, of the hints thus given, until I went to see her just before her death. Then she sent her daughter to fetch it, and put it, carefully rolled up in a piece of grey silk, into my hand. At the same time she assured me she had often seen it used, and described the mode adopted, which was the same as that already stated, only that in addition to the soot, salt, and meal put into the water boiled in the pot in which the arrow-head had been previously placed, there was also put in "a handful of soil which had never been dug with a spade, from the root of a tree which had never been planted by the hand of man." It is a leaf-shaped arrowhead, two and a quarter inches long, and an inch broad, well worked all over, and slightly curved longitudinally. Fig. 1, p. 44, is a representation of it.

In Dr. Wilson's "Prehistoric Annals of Scotland," we are told :"The elf-arrow was almost universally esteemed throughout Scotland as an amulet or charm, equally effectual against the malice of elfin sprites

and the spells of witchcraft. Dipped in the water which cattle were to drink, it was supposed to be the most effectual cure for their diseases; while, sewed in the dress, it was no less available for the protection of the human race; and it is still occasionally to be met with perforated, or set in gold and silver for wearing as an amulet. Like other weapons of elfin artillery, it was supposed to retain its influence at the will of the possessor, and thus became the most effective talisman against elfish malice, witchcraft, or the evil eye, when in the hands of man." The same might have been written of Ireland.1

66

One other fact concerning arrow-heads remains to be noted :-"It is curious that bows and arrows are very seldom mentioned in our old writings; and the passages that are supposed to refer to them are so indistinct that if we had no other evidence it might be difficult to prove that the use of the bow was known at all to the ancient Irish." So says Dr. Joyce in his Irish Names of Places, Vol. I., page 174. Modern writers are not so reticent. Spenser, for one, writing of the Irish broad swords of the Scythian form, as described by Olaus Magnus, informs us that the short bows and little quivers, with short bearded arrows used in his time in Ireland were, very Scythian, as you may read in the same Olaus." And he adds :-"The same sort of bows, quivers, and arrows are at this day to be seen commonly among the Northern Irish Scots. whose Scottish bows are not past three quarters of a yard long, with a string of wreathed hemp, slackly bent, and whose arrows are not much above half-an-ell long, tipped with steel heads, made like common broad arrow-heads, but much more sharp and slender, that they enter into a man or horse most cruelly, notwithstanding that they are shot forth weakly." Several interesting questions at once present themselves suggested by this statement. Taken by itself alone, one naturally asks, what has become of all the steel-heads here referred to? Of what material were the broad arrow-heads made? Is Spenser speaking of what was common in England only? And, taken in connexion with the silence, just alluded to of the older authors, native to the soil, were bows and arrows really unknown in this country in the times of which these authors write? Are we to assign our flint arrow-heads to an age long anterior to that of which they treat? Or, must we regard them as

In the Descriptive Catalogue of the collection of Antiquities and other objects illustrative of Irish History, exhibited in the Museum, Belfast, on the occasion of the Twenty-second Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, September, 1852, the writer says in a footnote: "When one of the arrow-heads falls from the turf which burns on the peasant's hearth, it is immediately understood to have been shot down the chimney. These playful, but revengeful deities, are said to take pleasure in ravelling the housewife's yarns, and exercising their nocturnal merriment on the unlucky weaver. They strike with their darts the cattle in the fields; but, happily, there are what are called 'gentle doctors,' who undertake to cure the mischief inflicted. These professional gentlemen cause their patients to drink a draught of running water into which they have thrown one of these elf-stones, three pieces of copper, a silver sixpence, and a fire-spark from the eave thatch."