y so viewed;
and the rainbow is looked upon as the bow of Tiermes, the thunder-god,
who shoots with it the guilty sorcerers.

But why should thunderbolts, whether stone axes or flint arrowheads, be
preserved, not merely as curiosities, but from motives of superstition?
The reason is a simple one. Everybody knows that in all magical
ceremonies it is necessary to have something belonging to the person you
wish to conjure against, in order to make your spells effectual. A bone,
be it but a joint of the little finger, is sufficient to raise the ghost
to which it once belonged; cuttings of hair or clippings of nails are
enough to put their owner magically in your power; and that is the
reason why, if you are a prudent person, you will always burn all such
off-castings of your body, lest haply an enemy should get hold of them,
and cast the evil eye upon you with their potent aid. In the same way,
if you can lay hands upon anything that once belonged to an elf, such as
a fairy-bolt or flint arrowhead, you can get its former possessor to do
anything you wish by simply rubbing it and calling upon him to appear.
This is the secret of half the charms and amulets in existence, most of
which are either real old arrowheads, or carnelians cut in the same
shape, which has now mostly degenerated from the barb to the
conventional heart, and been mistakenly associated with the idea of
love. This is the secret, too, of all the rings, lamps, gems, and boxes,
possession of which gives a man power over fairies, spirits, gnomes, and
genii. All magic proceeds upon the prime belief that you must possess
something belonging to the person you wish to control, constrain, or
injure. And, failing anything else, you must at least have a wax image
of him, which you call by his name, and use as his substitute in your
incantations.

On this primitive principle, possession of a thunderbolt gives you some
sort of hold, as it were, over the thunder-god himself in person. If you
keep a thunderbolt in your house it will never be struck by lightning.
In Shetland, stone axes are religiously preserved in every cottage as a
cheap and simple substitute for lightning-rods. In Cornwall, the stone
hatchets and arrowheads not only guard the house from thunder, but also
act as magical barometers, changing colour with the changes of the
weather, as if in sympathy with the temper of the thunder-god. In
Germany, the house where a thunderbolt is kept is safe from the stor