country, as in the long barrow at Rodmarton,[1] Gloucestershire, where were a small round white pebble and flint arrow-head. An ovoidal stone 4 ⨉ 212 inches occurred in a grave at Athelney;[2] and one of chert, 812 ⨉ 512 inches, in a barrow on Petersfield Heath.[3] Canon Greenwell has also found large pebbles or boulders in some of the Yorkshire barrows. They seem to come under another category than that of the smaller ornamental pebbles.
A small piece of rock crystal, probably an amulet or charm, lay in a small cist at Orem's Fancy, Stronsay,[4] Orkney, and fragments of quartz and selected pebbles frequently accompany early Irish interments.[5] At Caer Leb, Anglesea,[6] two silicious pebbles, one black and the other red, with a band of little pits round it, were found in 1865, and supposed to be amulets.
Mr. Kemble[7] has observed that in Teutonic tombs stones occur, deposited apparently from some supposed virtue or superstition, and has instanced two egg-shaped objects, apparently of Carrara marble, from Lüneburg tumuli. It has also been stated that in Penmynydd churchyard,[8] Anglesea, numerous skeletons were found with a white oval pebble, of the size of a hen's egg, near each. It is doubtful whether the bones were of Christians or not; but the Rev. T. J. Williams, in describing the discovery, has suggested that the stones might bear reference to the passage in Revelations (ii. 17):—"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."
In interments of an earlier date, such instances seem to point to some superstitious custom, possibly like that in India, where "the mystic Salagramma pebble, held in the hand of the dying Hindoo, is a sure preservation against the pains of eternal punishment."[9] This pebble, however, was black.
Among the Tasmanians[10] sacred pebbles play a not unimportant part; and crystals, or sometimes white stones, are frequently worn in bags suspended from the neck, and women never allowed to see them.
The symbolism of a white pebble, as representing happiness or a happy day, was widely known. The "calculi candore laudatus dies"[11] was not confined to the Romans, but known among the Thracians; and the "black balls" at ballots of the present day carry us back to the times when
"Mos erat antiquus niveis atrisque lapillis
His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpâ."[12]
Occasionally, fossil echini in flint are found buried with bodies. Mr. Worthington Smith found more than a hundred of them in a barrow of the Stone Age on Dunstable Downs.[13] A pebble of white quartz lay with two skeletons, which were those of a woman and child.
- ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 278.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xvi. p. 90.
- ↑ A. J., vol. xiii. p. 412.
- ↑ Proc. S. A. S., vol. viii. p. 350.
- ↑ Wood-Martin, "Rude Stone Mon. of Ireland," 1888, p. 86. Journ. R. Hist. and Arch. Assoc. of Ireland, 4th S., vol. v. p. 107.
- ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 314.
- ↑ A. J., vol. xiii. p. 412.
- ↑ Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. vii. p. 91. Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xvi. p. 326.
- ↑ Bonwick, "Daily Life of the Tasmanians," p. 194.
- ↑ Bonwick, op. cit., pp. 193-201.
- ↑ Plin., "Nat. Hist.," lib. vii. cap. 40.
- ↑ Ovid, "Met.," lib. xv. v. 41.
- ↑ "Man the Prim. Savage," p. 338.
