DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52552#0018
2
THE THUNDERWEAPON
the roof [138]. The object was evidently to avoid touching the
thunderstone, and this is sometimes very distinctly emphasized
in the records [51, 53]; thus, in Jutland it was often kept under
the far side of the fixed bedstead.
The thunderstone keeps trolls and other pernicious creatures
away from the house, and as most of the evils which befall man
and his property are due, according to the old popular belief, to
witchcraft and evil beifigs, the thunderstone in general becomes
a protection for house and cattle ; it draws luck to the house,
can be used as a healing power, and so on. This idea par-
ticularly asserted itself in certain cases where an injurious
influence, the origin of which was unknown, was frequently
felt. Thus the thunderstone especially protects the little un-
christened child against being “ changed ” and the horse in the
stable against “ nightmare.” But it was especially common to
use the thunderstone as a protection against mishaps with the
milk and its treatment: it was laid on the milk-shelves that
the milk might keep fresh or give better cream, and put on the
churn that the churning might give good butter. In many parts
a new, special name for the thunderstone has thus resulted:
butter-luck, etc. [71].
While these ideas were spread in essentially the same form
and preserved more or less perfectly all over the country, it was
with particular sorts of stones that the belief was associated in
particular parts of the country. Denmark has three portions
of territory in touch with the neighbouring countries in the
east and south, each with its special kind of thunderstone. In
the greater part of the country, viz. in Sealand with the
neighbouring isles, in Langeland, Funen, Bornholm (?), and
in Vendsyssel, Mors and the eastern parts of Jutland, the
common flint-axes of the stone age or occasionally other flint
antiquities (dagger blades, even the crescent-shaped flint saws
[33]) were the objects supposed to fall down from the sky in
thunderstorms [1-38]. Partially in Sealand and on the islands
to the south of it, Falster, Lolland and Bornholm [39-47],
belemnites (“ fingerstones ”) were regarded as thunderstones ;
whereas in western and southern Jutland [49-70] fossilized sea-
urchins (sea-eggs, echinites) passed as such. This may also
THE THUNDERWEAPON
the roof [138]. The object was evidently to avoid touching the
thunderstone, and this is sometimes very distinctly emphasized
in the records [51, 53]; thus, in Jutland it was often kept under
the far side of the fixed bedstead.
The thunderstone keeps trolls and other pernicious creatures
away from the house, and as most of the evils which befall man
and his property are due, according to the old popular belief, to
witchcraft and evil beifigs, the thunderstone in general becomes
a protection for house and cattle ; it draws luck to the house,
can be used as a healing power, and so on. This idea par-
ticularly asserted itself in certain cases where an injurious
influence, the origin of which was unknown, was frequently
felt. Thus the thunderstone especially protects the little un-
christened child against being “ changed ” and the horse in the
stable against “ nightmare.” But it was especially common to
use the thunderstone as a protection against mishaps with the
milk and its treatment: it was laid on the milk-shelves that
the milk might keep fresh or give better cream, and put on the
churn that the churning might give good butter. In many parts
a new, special name for the thunderstone has thus resulted:
butter-luck, etc. [71].
While these ideas were spread in essentially the same form
and preserved more or less perfectly all over the country, it was
with particular sorts of stones that the belief was associated in
particular parts of the country. Denmark has three portions
of territory in touch with the neighbouring countries in the
east and south, each with its special kind of thunderstone. In
the greater part of the country, viz. in Sealand with the
neighbouring isles, in Langeland, Funen, Bornholm (?), and
in Vendsyssel, Mors and the eastern parts of Jutland, the
common flint-axes of the stone age or occasionally other flint
antiquities (dagger blades, even the crescent-shaped flint saws
[33]) were the objects supposed to fall down from the sky in
thunderstorms [1-38]. Partially in Sealand and on the islands
to the south of it, Falster, Lolland and Bornholm [39-47],
belemnites (“ fingerstones ”) were regarded as thunderstones ;
whereas in western and southern Jutland [49-70] fossilized sea-
urchins (sea-eggs, echinites) passed as such. This may also