BAAL- WORSHIP IN NORTHERN EUROPE. 47 



namely, the small size of the sword-handles, bracelets, etc. ; 

 the character of the ornaments on the bronze implements, 

 and the engravings in Bronze age tumuli ; the worship of 

 Baal ; certain peculiar methods of reaping and fishing ; and 

 the use of war chariots. 



The implements and ornaments of bronze certainly appear 

 to have belonged to a race with smaller hands than those of 

 the present European nation ; the ornaments on them are 

 also peculiar, and have, in Professor Nilsson's opinion, a 

 symbolic meaning. Although the great stones, in tumuli 

 of the Bronze age, are very seldom ornamented, or even 

 hewn into shape, still there are some few exceptions ; one 

 of these is the remarkable monument, near Kivik in Chris- 

 tianstad. From the general character of the engravings 

 Professor Nilsson has no hesitation in referring this tumulus 

 to the Bronze age, and on two of the stones are represen- 

 tations of human figures, which may fairly be said to have 

 a Phoenician, or Egyptian appearance. 



On another of the stones, an obelisk is represented, which 

 Professor Nilssoh regards as symbolical of the Sun- God; and 

 it is certainly remarkable that in an ancient ruin in Malta, 

 characterised by other decorations of the Bronze age types, 

 a somewhat similar obelisk was discovered: we know also, 

 that in many countries Baal, the God of the Phoenicians, was 

 worshipped under the form of a conical stone. 



Nor is this, by any means, the only case in which Professor 

 Nilsson finds traces of Baal worship in Scandinavia. Indeed, 

 the festival of Baal, or Balder, was, he tells us, celebrated on 

 Midsummer's night in Scania, and far up into Norway, almost 

 to the Loffoden Islands, until within the last fifty years. A 

 wood fire was made upon a hill or mountain, and the people 

 of the neighbourhood gathered together in order, like Baal's 

 prophets of old, to dance round it, shouting and singing. 

 This Midsummer's-night-fire has even retained in some 



