It is a most remarkable fact that in the Eddas, Sagas, or songs of the people, no mention is ever made of rock-tracings. In the Sagas we are often told that drawings on shields, embroidery, cloth, &c., were made to preserve the memory of heroic deeds and important events. From these facts we must come to the conclusion that the rock-tracings are of great antiquity. [Illustration: Fig. 902.—Rock-tracing—two men fighting for a wheel, man ploughing, man with bow, and fleet of boats or ships. Tanum parish, Bohuslän. Height, 23½ feet; width, 17½ feet. ] The beautiful antiquities of bronze found in the North seem to show a civilisation higher than that existing at the time of the rock-tracings. The conscientious inquirer will naturally ask himself. To what epoch do these earlier rock-tracings belong—to the so-called _stone_, _bronze_, or _iron_ age? Unfortunately, nothing can positively settle the question. Scholars who have made them their special study do not agree; and we know that graves of the stone age have been found with tracings, but not of human figures.[120] But many of the tracings show that even at that remote period cattle were known to the inhabitants, and the existence of the plough conclusively shows that the people cultivated the soil. The frequent appearance of swords on the rock-tracings shows that they could not have been made during the stone age, in which swords were unknown; but there are several indications that the tracings were made before the iron age, and that they probably belong to the bronze age.[121] [Illustration: Fig. 903.—Ship on a rock-tracing at Lökeberg in Foss parish, Bohuslän. ⅒ real size. ] This art of tracing seems to have been earlier than that of writing runes, for not one of these peculiar representations, numbering several hundreds of different sizes, have runic characters upon them. [Illustration: Fig. 904.—Rock-tracing of reindeer, &c.; possibly representing a journey to the far North by the man wearing snow-shoes. Height, 6½ feet; width, 15 feet.—Backa, Brastad parish, Bohuslän. ] [Illustration: Fig. 905.—Rock-tracing, apparently representing men returning from some expedition in which the women have been made prisoners; numerous bowl-shaped hollows, varying in size from one to two inches in depth and diameter, have been made in the rock. Height, 10¾ feet; width, 8¼ feet. ] They are very primitive, and in several cases plainly show that modesty was not one of the characteristic traits of the people.[122] The first impression gathered on seeing them is that they belonged to a people of low civilisation, who must have been engaged in perpetual warfare, and who by this means commemorated the deeds of their warriors, and it is quite clear that the people who made them were not only warlike but seafaring. [Illustration: