[259] Singer's Wayland Smith, p. lxx.
[260] Die Hieroglyphen in dem Mythus des Æsculapius. Meiningen, 1819. Singer, p. lxx.
[261] Vide Thomas Wright on the Legend of Weland the Smith. Archæologia, vol. xxxii. p. 315. Also his article on Alfred, in the Biographia Literaria of the Royal Society of Literature regarding the authorship of this metrical version.
[262] Logan's Scottish Gael, vol. ii. p. 195.
[263] Macculloch's Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 327.
[264] Bishop Lesley's Hist. Bannatyne Club. 4to. Edinburgh, 1830. P. 76.
CHAPTER II.
THE METALLURGIC TRANSITION.
In the earliest glimpse we are able to catch of the British Isles with the dawning light of historic records, we learn of them as already celebrated for their mineral wealth. So long, however, as Britain retained its vast tracts of natural forests, and was only occupied by thinly scattered nomade tribes, the tin mines of Cornwall, and the foreign trade which they invited to the southern shores of the island, might reward the toil and sagacity of the ancient Cornubii or other primitive colonists of Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, without exercising any perceptible influence on neighbouring tribes, or being known to the remoter dwellers beyond the Solway and the Tyne. The spoils of war, more probably than any peaceful interchange of commodities, would first introduce the bronze weapons imported into Cornwall to the knowledge of the northern tribes. But the superiority of the sword and spear of metal over the old lance of flint or bone would speedily be appreciated, and we accordingly find abundant traces of one of the first elements of civilisation, viz., an interchange of commodities and the importation of foreign manufactures, having accompanied the advent of the Bronze Period. The rude aboriginal Briton no longer confined his aim in the chase to the supply of his own table and simple wardrobe. The Phœnicians traded to Britain for its furs as well as its metals, and for these the products of a wider district than the tin country would be required. The Caledonian hunter would learn to hoard up the skins won in the chase, to barter with them for the coveted sword and spear of bronze,—and thus the first elements of civilisation would precede the direct knowledge of the metallurgic arts.