And so the ignorant peasantry when these flints were first dug up, although they had "no tradition," rushed instinctively upon these hatchets and considered them magical, apparently on no better grounds than that they had belonged to a former race of men whom they associated with elves and fairies. Was not this their way of saying with Cicero, "Antiquitas proxime accedit ad deos."[248] [248] I find curious testimony to the belief in M. Maupertius' (Pinkerton, i. 252-4) account of an expedition of thirty leagues which he was induced to make into the interior of Lapland, by the accounts which he had received of a monument which the Laplanders "looked upon as the wonder of their country, and in which they conceived was _contained the knowledge of everything_ of which they were ignorant." In the end a monument was found bearing on it the appearance of great antiquity, and an inscription which M. Celsius, his companion ("very well acquainted with the Runic"), could not read. M. Maupertius indeed says, "If the tradition of the country be consulted, all the Laplanders assure us that they are characters of great antiquity, containing valuable secrets; but what can one believe in regard to antiquity from those people who do not even know their own age, and who for the greater part are ignorant who were their mothers." Without supposing that the mysterious stone actually concealed any valuable and recondite knowledge, I am still struck by this attestation to the belief that antiquity shrouded such secrets; and if, which does not altogether accord with other accounts, the Lapps are as ignorant as they are here represented, then it would seem to be true that when mankind lose the knowledge of everything else, they still retain the tradition of their loss and the knowledge of their degradation. Concerning the superstitious veneration for stone arrow-heads very generally diffused, _vide_ Mr E. T. Stevens' "Flint Chips" (Salisbury, 1870, p. 89.) And so far from tradition supplying us with no clue to solve the problem of the stone age, does it not in this way suggest a very decided though an antagonistic view to that of Sir John Lubbock. The superstitious regard of the peasantry for these newly found relics--which I presume came under Sir John's own observation when exploring the northern coast-finds--is really very curious, because it shows that their ideas and feelings in these matters were, after the lapse of at any rate a thousand years, identical with those of their ancestors. In evidence of which I adduce the following passage from Professor Nillson, having reference to the legend of the "guse arrows" or "Orvar Odd's saga":--