Frequent allusions occur in the old Northern poetry which prove that proficiency in skating was one of the most highly esteemed accomplishments of the Northern heroes. One of them, named Kolson, boasts that he is master of nine accomplishments, skating being one; while the hero Harold bitterly complains that though he could fight, ride, swim, glide along the ice on skates, dart the lance, and row, “yet a Russian maid disdains me.”
Eight arts are mine: to wield the steel,
To curb the warlike horse,
To swim the lake, or skate on heel
To urge my rapid course.
To hurl, well aimed, the martial spear,
To brush with oar the main—
All these are mine, though doomed to bear
A Russian maid’s disdain.
Specimens of old bone skates are occasionally dug up in fenny parts of the country. There are some in the British Museum, in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and probably in other collections. There seems to be good evidence that even in London the primitive bone skate was not entirely superseded by implements of steel until the latter part of last century.