In the pagan mythology of Scandinavia we have such typical examples
as Bors slaying the giant Ymir and transforming his bones into
boulders; also "the giant who had no heart" transforming six
brothers and their wives into stone; and, in the old Christian
mythology, St. Olaf changing into stone the wicked giants who
opposed his preaching.
So, too, in Celtic countries we have in Ireland such legends as
those of the dancers turned into stone; and, in Brittany, the
stones at Plesse, which were once hunters and dogs violating the
sanctity of Sunday; and the stones of Carnac, which were once
soldiers who sought to kill St. Cornely.
Teutonic mythology inherited from its earlier Eastern days a
similar mass of old legends, and developed a still greater mass of
new ones. Thus, near the Konigstein, which all visitors to the
Saxon Switzerland know so well, is a boulder which for ages was
believed to have once been a maiden transformed into stone for
refusing to go to church; and near Rosenberg in Mecklenburg is
another curiously shaped stone of which a similar story is told.
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