From Paleolithic times men were in the habit of cutting celts or hatchets in chalk, bitumen, and other fragile substances, which were certainly of no practical use. Thousands of similar objects in harder rock, but showing no sign of wear or tear, have also been found, and there is little doubt that they all alike served as amulets. This superstitious respect for certain objects lasted for many centuries, and was handed down from one generation to another. The tombs of the Bronze and Iron ages are often found to contain flint hatchets, some of them broken intentionally, a proof, as I have already said, that they were connected with funeral rites of the nature of which we are ignorant. We also find votive hatchets beneath dolmens. By the side of some skeletons at Cissbury lay flint celts. A hatchet one and a quarter feet long was found in a Lake Station of Switzerland. It was of such friable rock that it can have been of no use but as a symbol; perhaps, indeed, it may have been a badge of office. Lastly, Merovingian tombs contain hundreds of small flint celts, the last pious offerings to the departed.43 We find hatchets engraved on the megalithic monuments of Brittany, on the walls of the caves of Marne, and we meet with them again on the other side of the Atlantic, evidently bearing the same signification, implying respect for them as means of protection. De Longpérier has published a description of a Chaldean cylinder, on which was represented a priest presenting his offering to a hatchet lying on a throne, and a ring was picked up at Mykenæ, on the stone of which was engraved a double-bladed celt. We find the same idea in many different mythologies. The word _Nouter_ (God) is translated in Egyptian hieroglyphics by a sign resembling a celt, and the hatchet of Odin is engraved on the rocks of Kivrik. On a number of Gallo-Roman _cippi_, we find a hatchet beneath which we read the words, _Dis Manibus_, and lower down the dedication, _Sub Ascia dedicavit_. At all times and everywhere the hatchet appears as the emblem of force, and is the object of the respect of the people. The tradition of its value and importance is handed down from ancestors to descendants throughout many generations. [Illustration: 111.] Erratic block from Scania, covered with carvings.