Silbury Hill 180
Image by texlahoma
Silbury Hill

The Archaeology of a Monumental Mound

tiompan T
tiompan Jan 30, 2010 23:30:16
Replying to Branwen

Branwen wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Yep the whole animism caboodle has stones as having souls but specifically the souls of the ancestors is I believe less common than other suggestions i.e dancers , maidens , fiddlers.
Animism didn't even come into it for me; hadn't thought of their perspective. Probably had my head stuck in old scottish folklore for too long.

Haven't come across this in english folklore, but I read less of that but I find it the other way round in my experience. i.e. The customs and folklore about the soul stones has is older and has become more obscure (surviving in books up until about the 1850's, but mention of them mostly died out after that). The transformed dancer or fiddler stories have survived, but clearly in revised forms when you look at the elements of the stories.

Devils , witches ,midnight, breaking the sabbath, going to the well are the obvious ones but it seems that healing stones etc tend to be much smaller ,localised and never become "legends " .There was a recent "translation " of a Babylonian(i think)stele which may have explained the commissioner of the engraving's view of the soul in relation to the stone (iirc)

B Branwen
Branwen Jan 31, 2010 01:04:22
Replying to tiompan

I was thinking more along the lines of the hearth goddesses that live in or under the hearth stone, and connecting them to the instances of archeological finds of remains under such stones, some of them showing evidence of having been reinterred, perhaps when a family moved house.

Then again there is the belief that the "devoted one" that takes the blackened portion of bannock, (or whatever short straw custom is being followed)used to have to do more than just jump the bonfire three times. People in the highlands whispered about how in the bad old days the devoted one was sacrificed and his body put on the bone fire, their remains to be left under the stone. Even latterly, people up there believed a body under a cairn of stones left it's part of it's spirit there which you could connect with if you touched the stones of the cairn.

Then theres the stones called soul-stones or god-stones, said to be alive.

I think the stories of dancers or fiddlers turned to stone, or stones that walk and return is a later evolution of the idea of the stones being alive.

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