wooden back is tied on by a cord which passes through a hole in the blade. It is possible that the "Picts' knives" may in some cases have been used, like those of the Eskimos, for removing the blubber from whales.
It is difficult to assign a date to these instruments, which are almost peculiar to the Shetland Islands. There are traditions extant of their having been seen in use within the present century, in one instance by an old woman for cutting kail, and in Lewis,[1] a sharp stone was used in 1829, for cutting out a wedding dress. In the latter case the reason assigned was the want of scissors, but it would appear to have probably been merely an experimental trial of the cutting powers of a stone which may not have been one of these primitive tools. The occurrence of Picts' knives under so thick a deposit of peat shows, however, that they do not belong to any recent period, though five or six feet of peat do not of necessity indicate any very high degree of antiquity.
When the Princess Leonora Christina[2] was imprisoned in Copenhagen in 1663 and she was deprived of scissors and cutting instruments, she records, in 1665, that, "Christian had given me some pieces of flint which are so sharp that I can cut fine linen with them by the thread. The pieces are still in my possession, and with this implement I executed various things."
Stone knives of any form, having the edges ground, are of rare occurrence on the Continent, though in Norway and Sweden[3] those of what have been termed Arctic types are found. Nearly similar forms occur in North America. A peculiar knife, with a rectangular handle, much like a common table-knife, has been found in the Lake Settlement of Inkwyl.[4]
A North American knife,[5] with a somewhat similar handle, has a curved blade very thick at the back.
To return to the implements made of flint. Those which I have next to describe have been termed spear-heads, lance-heads, knives, and daggers. Their ordinary length is from 5 to 7 inches, and their extreme width from 112 to 212 inches. Their general form is lanceolate, but the greater breadth is usually nearer the point of the blade than the butt, which is in most instances either truncated or rounded. They exhibit remarkable skill in the treatment of flint in their manufacture, being as a rule symmetrical in form, with the edge in one plane, and equally convex on the two faces—which are dexterously chipped into broad flat facets—while the edges are still more carefully shaped by secondary working. Towards the butt, the converging sides are usually nearly straight, and in many, the edge at this part has been rounded by grinding, and the butt-end has had its angles removed in a similar manner.
