Note 2415 — THE CASSITERIDES, ICTIS, AND THE BRITISH TRADE IN TIN

Mr. W. C. Borlase (Tin Mining in Spain, pp. 24-6), remarking that ‘there is an extremely rare form of [the palstave], namely with two loops, and that has been found exclusively in Cornwall and Devon (in the mining districts especially), in Ireland, and in the western and north-western portion of the Iberian Peninsula’, and that ‘bronze celts of this class belong ... to ... 1250 to 1050 B.C.’, concludes that ‘at that period then—the very period to which has been assigned the foundation of Gades—Cornwall and the west coast of Spain were already in communication’. Perhaps; but not necessarily Cornwall and Gades. Similar celts have also been found in France (J. Evans, Anc. Bronze Implements, pp. 96-7).

Müllenhoff also argues (Deutsche Altertumskunde, i, 1890, pp. 5-8) that the passage in the Odyssey (x, 81-6) which describes the country of the Laestrygones, where the days in summer were very long and the nights very short, would seem to be based upon stories told by Phoenician mariners; but, as I have already remarked (p. 218), if Homer’s lines were founded upon fact, it is more probable that the stories came to him from Scandinavia.