Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/73

 is usually made of sandstone with a smooth surface.

These rude stones, evidently shaped by human hands, are found in such numbers that it is evident they must once have been in daily use. Could information be obtained regarding the purposes for which they were employed, it would reveal to us much of the mode of life of the early people at present hidden from us.

It is, however, in the polished celts or axes that the wonderful artistic skill of the Stone Age people is to be seen. In Shetland these finely formed, polished weapons have for ages been looked upon with a kind of superstitious regard, and treasured up from the idea that the possession of one brought luck to the family that possessed it. They were known as thunderbolts or battle-axes, and were generally believed to have fallen from the sky during a thunderstorm. It used to be thought that to have a battle-axe in a house protected it from being struck by lightning, and it was said