THE STONE AGE^PAST AND PRESENT. 225 



implements, proves that such things were found by a people 

 who, being possessed of metal, had forgotten the nature and 

 use of these rude instruments of earlier times. Kang-hi's re- 

 marks that some of the so-called "lightning-stones" were 

 like hatchets, knives, and mallets, and Pliny^s mention of some 

 of the ceraunice or thunder-stones being like axes,^ are cases 

 in point. But the mere mention of the belief in thunderbolts 

 falKng, as for example in Madagascar^ and Arracan,^ only gives 

 a case for further inquiry on the suspicion that the thunder- 

 bolts in these regions may turn out to be stone implements, as 

 they have so often done elsewhere. 



The thunderbolt is thought to have a magical power, and 

 there is especially one notion, in connexion with which it comes 

 into use. This is that it preserves the place where it is kept 

 from lightning, the idea being apparently here, as in the belief 

 about the " wildfire " which will be presently mentioned, that 

 where the lightning has struck, it will not strike again, so that 

 the place where a thunderbolt is put is made safe by having 

 been already struck once, though harmlessly. In Germany, the 

 house in which it is kept is safe from the storm ; when a tempest 

 is approaching, it begins to sweat, and again it is said of it, that 

 " he who chastely beareth this, shall not be struck by light- 

 ning, nor the house or town where that stone is,"* while nearly 

 the same idea comes out in Pliny's account of the hrontia, which 

 is " like the heads of tortoises, and falling, as they think, with 

 thunder, puts out, if you will believe it, what has been struck 

 by lightning."^ These notions suggest an interpretation of the 

 curious account given by Sir James Emerson Tennent of the 

 wajira-chumbatan, placed on the top of Singhalese dagobas or 

 shrines, to protect them from lightning.^ As ivajira is Sanskrit 

 vajra, the thunderbolt, the virtue of the device may have lain, 

 as in the preceding cases, in some object supposed to be the 

 thunderbolt, or at least to represent it, as a stone celt, a dia- 

 mond, or some other precious stone. 



In the mythology of our race, the bolt of the Thunder-god 



> Plin. xxxvii. 51. « Ellis, 'Madagascar,' vol. i. pp. 30, 398. 



3 Coleman, Myth, of Hindoos, p. 327. ■* G-rimm, D. M., pp. 164, 1170. 



' Plin., xxxvii. 55. Tennent, ' Ceylon,' vol. i. p. 508. 



Q 



