For it is a mistake to suppose that that wistful sense of
eeriness in ruined buildings, to which most of us are susceptible, is
an exclusively modern feeling. The name Cyclopean, attached to those
desolate remains of buildings which were older than Greek history
itself, attests their romantic influence over the fancy of the people
who thus attributed them to a superhuman strength and skill. And the
Cyclopes, like all the early mythical names of artists, have this
note of reality, that they are names not of individuals but of
classes, the guilds or companies of workmen in which a certain craft
was imparted and transmitted. The Dactyli, the Fingers, are the
[210] first workers in iron; the savage Chalybes in Scythia the first
smelters; actual names are given to the old, fabled Telchines--
Chalkon, Argyron, Chryson--workers in brass, silver, and gold,
respectively.+ The tradition of their activity haunts the several
regions where those metals were found. They make the trident of
Poseidon; but then Poseidon's trident is a real fisherman's
instrument, the tunny-fork. They are credited, notwithstanding, with
an evil sorcery, unfriendly to men, as poor humanity remembered the
makers of chains, locks, Procrustean beds; and, as becomes this dark
recondite mine and metal work, the traditions about them are gloomy
and grotesque, confusing mortal workmen with demon guilds.
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