36 • OUP-SHAPED AND OTHER LAPIDAKIAN SCULPTUBES. 



cup-cuttings were still made in Sweden when the work of converting the 

 inhabitants from paganism was begun, it by no means follows that the orig- 

 inal motive for cup-cutting then still actuated the people of that country. 

 We must at least take into account the possibility of such mutations, the 

 more so as examples are not wanting. In most countries of Europe and in 

 China and Japan, for instance, popular superstition even now invests pre- 

 historic stone implements, such as axes, celts and arrow-heads, with magic 

 powers, though the remote ancestors of the believers certainly used such 

 weapons and tools. What was originally an object employed in daily life, 

 became in the course of time a charm. 



Some curious superstitions in relation to cupped stones are still in vogue 

 among the uneducated people of different European countries. As we have 

 seen, they are called elfstenar in Sweden. "The elfs," says Miss Mestorf, 

 "are the souls of the dead; they frequently dwell in or below stones, and 

 stand in various relations to the living. If their quiet is disturbed, or their 

 dwelling-place desecrated, or if due respect is not paid to them, they will 

 revenge themselves by afflicting the perpetrators with diseases or other 

 misfortunes. For this reason people take care to seciire the favor of the 

 'little ones' by sacrifices, or to pacify them when offended. Their claims 

 are very modest : a little butter or grease, a copper coin, a flower or a rib- 

 bon will satisfy them. If they have, inflicted disease, some object worn by 

 the sick person, such as a pin or a button, will reconcile them. A Swedish 

 proprietor of an estate (in Uppland), who had caused an elfstone to be 

 transported to his park, found a few days afterward small sacrificial gifts 

 lying in the cups. In the Stockholm Museum are j^reserved rag-dolls, which 

 had been found upon an elfstone." * These probably had been deposited 

 by women who wished to become mothers. Thus we see the cup-stones in 

 Sweden applied to the use of altars ; their cups, however, instead of holding 

 the blood of victims, as Nilsson conjectured, serve to receive the harmless 

 gifts of a simple-minded peasantry. 



The cup-stone question has of late frequently been discussed in the 

 annual meetings of the German Anthropological Society as well as in the 

 meetings of the Anthropological Society of Berlin, Messrs. Virchow, Desor, 



* C'orrespondcnz-Blaft tier Deutsrlien Autbropologischeu Gcsellschiift, 1879, S. 4. 



