Hence a sort of
sacredness attached to them. In Chaldea, they were built into
the wall of temples; in Egypt, they were strung about the necks
of the dead. In India, fine specimens are to this day seen upon
altars, receiving prayers and sacrifices.
Naturally these beliefs were brought into the Christian
mythology and adapted to it. During the Middle Ages many of
these well-wrought stones were venerated as weapons, which
during the "war in heaven" had been used in driving forth
Satan and his hosts; hence in the eleventh century an Emperor of
the East sent to the Emperor of the West a "heaven axe"; and
in the twelfth century a Bishop of Rennes asserted the value of
thunder-stones as a divinely- appointed means of securing success
in battle, safety on the sea, security against thunder, and
immunity from unpleasant dreams. Even as late as the seventeenth
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 for it health-giving virtues.
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