The Science of Fairy Tales / An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology

Mr. Andrew Lang has remarked, following Dr. Tylor, that in this taboo the fairy mistress is ?the representative of the stone age.? This is so; and the reason is, because she belongs to the realm of the supernatural. When the use of metals was discovered, stone implements were discarded in ordinary life; but for ages afterwards knives of stone were used for religious purposes. There is evidence, for instance, that the Hebrews, to seek no further, employed them in some of their sacred rites; an altar of stone was forbidden to be hewn; and when King Solomon built the temple, ?there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building.? Although there may be no direct evidence of such a practice among the Cymric Britons, they were probably no exception to the rule, which seems to have been general throughout the world; and the Druids' custom of cutting the mistletoe with a golden, not with an iron, sickle, points in this direction. The retention of stone instruments in religious worship was doubtless due to the intense conservatism of religious feeling. The gods, having been served with stone for so long, would be conceived of as naturally objecting to change; and the implements whose use had continued through so many revolutions in ordinary human utensils, would thereby have acquired a divine character. Changes of religion, however, brought in time changes even in these usages. Christianity was bound to no special reverence for knives and arrowheads of flint; but they seem to have been still vaguely associated with the discarded deities, or their allies, the Nymphs and Oreads and Fairies of stream or wood or dell, and with the supernatural generally. A familiar example of this is the name of Elfbolts given by the country people in this and other lands to these old-world objects, whenever turned up by the harrow or the spade. Now the traditional preference on the part of supernatural beings for stone instruments is only one side of the thought which would, as its reverse side, show a distinct abhorrence by the same mythical personages for metals, and chiefly (since we have long passed out of the bronze age) for iron. Not only do witches and spirits object to the horseshoe; axes and iron wedges are equally distasteful to them?at all events in Denmark. So in Brittany, when men go to gather the herbe d'or, a medicinal plant of extraordinary virtue, they go barefooted, in a white robe and fasting, and no iron may be employed; and though all the necessary ceremonies be performed, only holy men will be able to find it. The magical properties of this plant, as well as the rites requisite to obtain it, disclose its sacredness to the old divinities. It shines at a distance like gold, and if one tread on it he will fall asleep, and will come to understand the languages of birds, dogs, and wolves.[219]

In previous chapters we have already had occasion to note this dislike for iron and steel. Hence the placing of scissors and fire-steel in an unchristened babe's cradle. Hence the reason for the midwife's casting a knife behind her when she left the troll's dwelling laden with his gifts; and for the Islay father's taking the precaution of striking his dirk into the threshold when he sought his son in the fairy hill. So, too, in Sweden people who bathed in the sea were gravely advised to cast into it close to them a fire-steel, a knife, or the like, to prevent any monster from hurting them. The bolts and locks to which the fairy of Beddgelert objected would have prevented her free passage into and out of the house.