folklore

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  This Mardi Gras of the West Fizzled Out Like a Wet Firecracker in 1902 

  THE FESTIVAL OF MOUNTAIN AND PLAIN It’s 1895, and Colorado has just crawled out of an economic nosedive that would make even a seasoned rodeo bull rider queasy. What’s a city to do? Throw a party, of course! And not just any party, mind you. We’re talking a shindig so grand it would “eclipse anything…

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  Is the Byers-Evans House Haunted?

  Hold onto your ectoplasm, you faint-hearted fools! The Byers-Evans House isn’t just haunted – it’s a paranormal powder keg ready to explode with spectral shenanigans that would make Houdini himself wet his ghostly pants! For 140 unholy years, this Italianate monstrosity has loomed over Denver like a vulture eyeing roadkill, its walls oozing with the…

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  “Rocky Mountain Jim” Nugent, a Man as Wild and Untamed as the Rockies Themselves

  Picture, if you will, a figure straight out of legend: one eye gleaming with mischief, the other a gaping void courtesy of a grizzly’s fury. Tawny curls framing a face half-hewn from marble, half-mauled by nature’s wrath. This, dear listeners, was the infamous Rocky Mountain Jim. Mothers whispered his name to naughty children, warning that…

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  Decline of thunderstone mythology

  Even as late as the 17th century, a French ambassador brought a stone hatchet, which still exists in the museum at Nancy, as a present to the Prince-Bishop of Verdun, and claimed that it had healing properties. Andrew Dickson White described the discovery of the true origin of thunderstones as a “line of observation and thought ……

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  Fossils as thunderstones

  In many parts of southern England until the middle of the nineteenth century, another name commonly used for fossil Echinoids was ‘thunderstone’, though other fossils such as belemnites and (rarely) ammonites were also used for this purpose. In 1677 Dr. Robert Plot, the first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, published his classic book The Natural History of Oxfordshire. Plot recorded that in Oxfordshire what are now…

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  Thunderstones (and Touchstones) in Asian Tradition

  In Burma they are used as a cure and preventative for appendicitis. In Japan they cure boils and ulcers. In Malaysia and Sumatra they are used to sharpen the kris, are considered very lucky objects, and have been credited with being touchstones for gold. A touchstone is a small tablet of dark stone such as slate or lydite, used for assaying precious metal alloys. It has a…

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  Thunderstones in European Folklore

  In Scandinavia thunderstones were frequently worshiped as family gods who kept off spells and witchcraft. Beer was poured over them as an offering, and they were sometimes anointed with butter. In Switzerland the owner of a thunderstone whirls it, on the end of a thong, three times around his head, and throws it at the door of his dwelling at the approach of…

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  A 12th century Bishop of Rennes asserted the value of thunderstones as a divinely appointed means of securing success in battle, safety on the sea, security against thunder, and immunity from unpleasant dreams

  During the Middle Ages many of these well-wrought thunderstones were venerated as weapons, which during the “war in heaven” had been used in driving forth Satan and his hosts. Hence, in the 11th century the Byzantine emperor sent to the Holy Roman emperor a “heaven axe”; and in the 12th century, a Bishop of Rennes asserted the value of thunderstones as a divinely appointed means…

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  Greeks and Romans, at least from the Hellenistic period onward, used Neolithic stone axeheads for apotropaic protection of buildings including villas, military structures such as barracks, temples, and kilns

  The Greeks and Romans, at least from the Hellenistic period onward, used Neolithic stone axeheads for the apotropaic protection of buildings. A 1985 survey of the use of prehistoric axes in Romano-British contexts found forty examples, of which twenty-nine were associated with buildings including villas, military structures such as barracks, temples, and kilns.

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  Albanians Believed the Supreme Powers of Thunderstones Were Formed During Lightning Strikes

  Albanians believed in the supreme powers of thunderstones (kokrra e rrufesë or guri i rejës), which were believed to be formed during lightning strikes and to fall from the sky. Thunderstones were preserved in family life as important cult objects. It was believed that bringing them inside the house would bring good fortune, prosperity, and progress to people, especially in livestock and agriculture,…