and in Brazil[1] the name for a stone axe-blade is corisco, or lightning.
In Italy[2] a similar belief that these stone implements are thunderbolts prevails, and Moscardo[3] has figured two polished celts as Saette o Fulmini; and in Greece[4] the stone celts are known as Astropelekia, and have long been held in veneration.
About the year 1081 we find the Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenus,[5] sending, among other presents, to the Emperor Henry III. of Germany, ἀστροπέλεκυν δεδεμένον μετὰ χρυσαφίου, an expression which appears to have puzzled Ducange and Gibbon, but which probably means a celt of meteoric origin mounted in gold. About 1670[6] a stone hatchet was brought from Turkey by the French Ambassador, and presented to Prince Francois de Lorraine, bishop of Verdun. It still exists in the Musée Lorrain at Nancy.
Nor is the belief in the meteoric and supernatural origin of celts confined to Europe. Throughout a great part of Asia the same name of thunderbolts or lightning-stones is applied to them. Dr. Tylor[7] cites an interesting passage from a Chinese encyclopædia of the seventeenth century respecting lightning-stones, some of which have the shape of a hatchet.
In Japan[8] they are known as thunderbolts, or as the battle-axe of Tengu,[9] the Guardian of Heaven. They are there of great use[10] medicinally; in Java[11] they are known as lightning-teeth. The old naturalist Rumph,[12] towards the end of the seventeenth century, met with many such in Java and Amboyna, which he says were known as "Dondersteenen."
In Burma[13] and Assam[14] stone adzes are called lightning-stones, and are said to be always to be found on the spot where a thunderbolt has fallen, provided it is dug for, three years afterwards. When reduced to powder they are an infallible specific
- ↑ Ann. for Nord. Oldk., 1838, p. 159. Klemm., "C. G.," vol. i. p. 268. Prinz Neuwied, ii. p. 35.
- ↑ Nicolucci, "di Alcune Armi, &c., in Pietra," 1863, p. 2.
- ↑ "Mus. Mosc.," 1672, p. 144.
- ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xv. p. 358; xvi. p. 145. Finlay, "Πρόιστ. 'Αρχάιολ.," P. 5.
- ↑ Alexius, Lib. iii. p. 93, et seqq., quoted by Gibbon, "Dec. and Fall," c. 56.
- ↑ Cartailhac, p. 4.
- ↑ "Early Hist. of Mankind," p. 211. Klemm, "Cultur-Geschichte," vol. vi. p. 467.
- ↑ Tylor, op. cit. 214.
- ↑ Franks, Trans. Preh. Cong., 1868, p. 260.
- ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xxvii. 1895, p. 326.
- ↑ Notes and Queries, 2nd S., vol. viii. p. 92. Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 121.
- ↑ Arch. für Anthrop., vol. iv. Corr. Blatt, p. 48. Rumphius, "Curios. Amboin.," p. 215.
- ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2d S., vol. iii. p. 97.
- ↑ Proc. Ethnol. Soc., 1870, p. lxii. Jour. Anth. Inst., vol. i. p. lxi.
