Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/77

 Rh that they may be expected to correspond roughly, in regard to their distribution, with the geological distribution of the belemnite-bearing strata. These occur in the south of England, as far west as Dorset, in all the south-eastern counties, and in eastern counties as far north as the Tees; also in the north of Scotland (Cromarty Firth), and the north-east of Ireland, They do not occur in Wales.

Allusion has already been made to the fact that the echinis was noticed and employed for some apparently magical or quasi-religious purpose by prehistoric inhabitants of these islands. The only question that remains is what that purpose could be, and unfortunately this is not very clear. On the one hand we have the fact that the so-called "snake's egg" of the Druids has been considered to be an echinus. On the other, various species of the genus micraster, which are popularly called fairy loaves, are still treasured by the labourer of modern Essex, who believes his household will never want bread so long as he retains one. Again, Mr. G. W. Lamplugh informs me that he once had a fossil. echinoderm, said to be a lucky stone and to have been used for making butter come, brought him for identification in south-west Ireland, the nearest chalk being in Antrim.

Last, but not least, the echinis is recorded by Plot to have been called a thunderbolt by the country people, no doubt from the rough resemblance of some specimens in shape to the nodules of iron pyrites, which are also so called.

The belief in what I may call the keraunic origin of the stone axehead and arrowhead has often been described as if it were universal in these islands, but, although it would be a matter of considerable labour and time, it would, no doubt, be possible to show that the alleged universality of the belief has been over-stated.

In Scotland there was a long list of ailments which