Thunderbolt

“ Dr. Krauss, from whom I have taken these remarks, adds that in America and Australia it is also regarded as a charm protective and luck-bringing. But here there is a confusion of objects. The thunderbolt described by Dr. Krauss is, I believe, a petrified shell, a kind of mucro or belemnite. The thunderbolt of the Red Indians really resembles it, but is entirely different in its nature. The latter results from lightning entering the sand fusing it. It sometimes makes in this way a very long tube or rod, with a point. People, finding these, naturally believed that they were thunderbolts. ”

“ The thunder booming in the distance, then sharply exploding like a piece of ordnance directly overhead, the crack of the solid oak as the thunderbolt tore it to splinters, the incessant streaming of the lightning across the sky, the soughing of the wind—all these made a scene terrifically grand, and would have induced almost any one to have sought the shelter offered him, convinced that the only danger at such a time was from the elements themselves. ”

“ And, now, the speed and stroke of thunderbolt Is so tremendous, and with glide so swift Those thunderbolts rush on and down, because Their roused force itself collects itself First always in the clouds, and then prepares For the huge effort of their going-forth; Next, when the cloud no longer can retain The increment of their fierce impetus, Their force is pressed out, and therefore flies With impetus so wondrous, like to shots Hurled from the powerful Roman catapults. ”

“ A bright flash of lightning frightened Thun, and though I signaled for him to stop, he sprang right up on a huge glowing thunderbolt that had fallen across the netway, and it fell and fell and fell—bringing us to where we now are."
"Well, that's one way of going places," commented Kabumpo, swinging his trunk from side to side.
"But how can we find Anuther Planet when none of us fly?" demanded Randy anxiously. "It must be miles above this country, for think how fast and far thunderbolts fall when they fall." ”

“ He is so startled for a moment he is fairly speechless—struck dumb with astonishment. If a thunderbolt had fallen from a clear sky, or the ground had suddenly opened beneath his feet, he could not have been more astounded. ”

“ 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 storm ”

“ Curiously enough, to the present day the conception of the thunderbolt is essentially one of a bolt—that is to say, an arrow, or at least an arrowhead. All existing thunderbolts (and there are plenty of them lying about casually in country houses and local [Pg 60] museums) are more or less arrow-like in shape and appearance; some of them, indeed, as we shall see by-and-by, are the actual stone arrow heads of primitive man himself in person. Of course the noble savage was himself in the constant habit of shooting at animals and enemies with a bow and arrow. ”

“ Those who don’t still believe in the bodily thunderbolt, a fearsome aërial weapon which buries itself deep in the bosom of the earth, look upon lightning as at least an embodiment of the electric fluid, a long spout or line of molten fire, which is usually conceived of as striking the ground and then proceeding to hide itself under the roots of a tree or beneath the foundations of a tottering house. Primitive man naturally took to the grosser and more material conception. ”

“ A thunderbolt, in the sense of a metallic substance, or bolt, hurled through the air by a thunderstorm, does not exist. The term is properly applied to the stream of electrical fluid passing from the clouds to the earth. ”

“ So commonly are thunderbolts picked up to the present day that to disbelieve in them seems to many country people a piece of ridiculous and stubborn scepticism. Why, they’ve ploughed up dozens of them themselves in their time, and just about the very place where the thunderbolt struck the old elm-tree two years ago, too. ”

“ In the different countries of Europe, and in other parts of the world, such as Brazil and Japan, there is a current belief amongst the people that the stone axes which are found in the ground, and the use of which is forgotten, are thunderbolts, weapons by means of which the god of thunder kills his enemies, when it looks as if they had been struck by lightning. Only three years ago a man in the northern part of Sweden dug a hole in the ground where he hoped to find a thunderbolt ”

“ The thunderbolt, which produces sometimes dreadful effects, is compacted of little atoms which fly in the air, small vapors drawn up by the sun, and mixed with other sulphurous matter and petrifying juice. Nothing is so weak, but his strength can make victorious; nothing so small, but by his power he can accomplish his great ends by it ”

“ He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls. ”

“ VORACITY OF THE BŒOTIANS.
Him whom your friends e'en now, from his great strength,
Surname the Thunderbolt?
A. Most probably;
For I think he will overturn all tables
Which he once strikes with his consuming jaw.
And in these lines the comic poet shows that it was from this man that he had given his play the title of The Thunderbolt. And Theophilus, in his Epidaurus, says—
There was a Mantinean centurion,
Atrestides his name; who of all men
That ever lived could eat the greatest quantity. ”

“ Fear no more the lightning flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone,
where the distinction between the lightning and the thunderbolt is particularly well indicated. In every part of Europe belemnites and stone hatchets are alike regarded as thunderbolts; so that we have the curious result that people confuse under a single name a natural fossil of immense antiquity and a human product of comparatively recent but still prehistoric date. Indeed, I have had two thunderbolts shown me at once, one of which was a large belemnite and the other a modern Indian tomahawk. ”

“ The thunderbolt without the reverberations of thunder would frighten man but little, though the danger lies in the lightning, not in the noise. ”

“ The so-called thunderbolts—usually flint axe-heads—are believed to have been hurled at the trolls or elves by the thunder, so that these evil-disposed spirits might be subdued and prevented from fulfilling an old saying, according to which they would desolate the earth. Originally it was Thor himself who was believed to hurl the thunderbolt.
These stones were supposed to be endowed with wonder-working powers. When a woman was in labor, ale was allowed to drip over a stone of this kind, and was then given to the woman to drink. ”

“ Thunderbolt put back his ears. “That is what I said,” he went on, “and I’m not going to turn a hair over it, either. A change of monogram can happen to anybody.”
“Of course,” said I, taking particular pains to show mine. It was on my best dress-blanket, which Peter was putting on, and which was made to order for me in Missy’s father’s woolen mills. “But how did it happen that you—eh——”
Thunderbolt’s eyes showed a rim of white—a bad-temper sign that no thoroughbred (and no part thoroughbred) allows himself to make. “‘You’re as silly as a filly,’” he quoted. ”

“ Then it was seen that if you made your lightning-rods pointed at the end, you would be able in the same way to dissipate your electricity before it ever had time to come to a head in the shape of lightning. From that moment the thunderbolt was safely dead and buried. It was urged, indeed, that the attempt thus to rob Heaven of its thunders was wicked and impious: but the common-sense of mankind refused to believe that absolute omnipotence could be sensibly defied by twenty yards of cylindrical iron tubing. ”

“ A thunderbolt is caused when winds are repeatedly collected, imprisoned, and violently ignited; or when a part is torn asunder and is more violently expelled downwards, the rending being due to the fact that the compression of the clouds has made the neighbouring parts more dense ”

“ He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,
Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow
Your breath has time to straighten,
Your brain to bubble cool, —
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul. ”

“ And yet even nowadays, I believe, there are a large number of well-informed people, who have passed the sixth standard, taken prizes at the Oxford Local, and attended the dullest lectures of the Society for University Extension, but who nevertheless in some vague and dim corner of their consciousness retain somehow a lingering faith in the existence of thunderbolts. They have not yet grasped in its entirety the simple truth that lightning is the reality of which thunderbolts are the mythical or fanciful or verbal representation. ”

“ The man who was called the Thunderbolt turned sleepy eyes to the dark face of the Sheikh of Rum, in whose country they were encamped.
“Give orders for ten thousand beaters to be mustered from the town. It is my will.” ”

“ England [146] and Thunderbolt with the trap—Martin on the rumble. I whinnied, and Missy gave me a smart rap for it that made me fairly dance. But neither Martin nor Mr. England saw me. As for Thunderbolt, if he did, he gave no sign, but stepped out with his high knee-action, making a good pace uptown. ”

“ Comes fair with wind still hanging doggedly to eastward and viciously puffy. Away under single reef, for we must drive her a bit to make Thunderbolt tonight. Across St. Catherine’s Sound where we kicked up a good bit of dust and then creek and river winding and twisting through the marsh and giving the quartermaster all he wants at the wheel. We are bidding good-bye to our old friends the pelicans which sometimes have made us feel as if we were sailing on a pond in some big “zoo.” Bully old birds they are. ”

“ Thunderbolt is the term used when the fire is violently kindled and hurled to the ground with great force as the clouds grind against each other or are torn by the wind. Others say that it is a compression of fiery air descending with great force. A typhoon is a great and violent thunderstorm whirlwind-like, or a whirlwind of smoke from a cloud that has burst. ”

“ The thunderbolt may be produced either by a violent condensation of the winds, or by their rapid motion and conflagration. It may arise from the fact of the winds meeting in places which are too dense, in consequence of the accumulation of clouds, and then a portion of the current detaches itself and proceeds towards the lower situations ”

“ Any boy who could not have enjoyed the “spread” which Chef Tom Clifton prepared would have been in a pretty poor condition.
But every boy did enjoy it, even though the insects, both flying and crawling, persisted in making themselves unduly conspicuous.
Thunderbolt proved a most agreeable guide and companion. He related stories, told them [102] secrets of woodcraft which even Tom admitted he had not heard before, and helped to drag the balsam boughs into the glade and arrange them in neat, smooth piles.
“He’s a crackerjack,” laughed Sam Randall. ”

“ Which is, that lightning, kept to itself, is quiescent; it is the assaulting contact of the thunderbolt that releases it from captivity, ignites its awful fires, and so produces an instantaneous combustion and explosion which spread disaster and desolation far and wide in the earth."
After another day devoted to rest and recovery, the expedition proceeded upon its way. Some days later it went into camp in a pleasant part of the plain, and the savants sallied forth to see what they might find. Their reward was at hand. Professor Bull Frog discovered a strange tree, and called his comrades. ”

“ The popular and almost universal belief in thunderbolts cannot be without some foundation. Great quantities of a kind of transparent ore, pointed at one end, are found in Angola, which the inhabitants call tarc, and believe to be engendered in the air, and that it falls from thence in thundering weather [2] . The peasants in Norway say, that the thunder darts down the stones which they call thunderbolts, aiming them at the Troll, a kind of witches, or infernal spirits of the night, who otherwise would destroy the whole world [3] . ”

“ If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down. ”

“ Teams and the persons accompanying them appear to be peculiarly in danger during a thunderstorm. Caves, and even deep mines, afford no absolute safety, for the thunderbolt has been known to enter even these. ”

“ Mr Maguire had read other little stories told in another way in other newspapers, of greater weight, no doubt, than the Littlebath Christian Examiner, and had thought that he could wield a thunderbolt as well as any other Jupiter; but in wielding thunderbolts, as in all other operations of skill, a man must first try his 'prentice hand with some reticence ”

“ Built into walls or placed on the threshold of stables, thunderbolts are capital preventives of fire or other damage, though not perhaps in this respect quite equal to a rusty horseshoe from a prehistoric battle-field. ”

“ Mixcoatl, the Mexican Cloud-Serpent, as well as Jove, carries his bundle of arrows or thunderbolts, which in the hand of Thor are represented by his mighty club or hammer. The old and universal belief that stones were hurled by the Thunder-God is not so far-fetched as we, in our pride of science, might think, for the flints which are mistaken for thunderbolts, and which become objects [Pg 47] of adoration as well as charms, produce a flash when struck by the lightning. In the lightning flash man would see the descent of fire from heaven for his needs. ”