Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/79

 the soil at Tingwall. They are of porphyritic stone. The largest of the group, Fig. 1, measures 10½ inches in length by 2¾ inches across the cutting face. In the case of the other Tingwall specimen, Fig. 4, which measures 9 inches in length by 3¾ inches, the cutting face is slightly extended, giving it somewhat the appearance of the common form of bronze axe. Possibly this implement belongs to the transition period towards the close of the Stone Age, when it was not unlikely that the forms of the bronze weapons then possessed only by the very wealthy would be imitated in stone as far as that material would permit. Little indication of such an influence, however, is to be seen. On the other hand, it is likely that in the first instance the bronze weapons were modelled on the earlier stone type. The smallest of the three found together at Tingwall is of a less common form. It measures 6½ inches in length by 2 inches in breadth, tapering to about 1¾ inches at the butt,