So, too, in Celtic countries: typical of this mode of thought in
Brittany and in Ireland is the popular belief that such features in
the landscape were dropped by the devil or by fairies.
Even at a much later period such myths have grown and bloomed.
Marco Polo gives a long and circumstantial legend of a mountain in
Asia Minor which, not long before his visit, was removed by a
Christian who, having "faith as a grain of mustard seed," and
remembering the Saviour's promise, transferred the mountain to its
present place by prayer, "at which marvel many Saracens became
Christians."[[211]]
Similar mythical explanations are also found, in all the older
religions of the world, for curiously marked meteoric stones,
fossils, and the like.
Typical examples are found in the imprint of Buddha's feet on
stones in Siam and Ceylon; in the imprint of the body of Moses,
which down to the middle of the last century was shown near Mount
Sinai; in the imprint of Poseidon's trident on the Acropolis at
Athens; in the imprint of the hands or feet of Christ on stones in
France, Italy, and Palestine; in the imprint of the Virgin's tears
on stones at Jerusalem; in the imprint of the feet of Abraham at
Jerusalem and of Mohammed on a stone in the Mosque of Khait Bey at
Cairo; in the imprint of the fingers of giants on stones in the
Scandinavian Peninsula, in north Germany, and in western France; in
the imprint of the devil's thighs on a rock in Brittany, and of his
claws on stones which he threw at churches in Cologne and
Saint-Pol-de-Leon; in the imprint of the shoulder of the devil's
grand mother on the "elbow-stone" at the Mohriner see; in the
imprint of St.
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