The Threshold Covenant; or, The Beginning of Religious Rites — John Shaqi
The Threshold Covenant; or, The Beginning of Religious RitesTrumbull, H. Clay (Henry Clay)
Religion
The Threshold Covenant; or, The Beginning of Religious Rites
Trumbull, H. Clay (Henry Clay)
Covenants -- Religious aspects
A story told among the Danes is, that “many years ago, when the ramparts
were being raised round Copenhagen, the wall always sank, so that it was
not possible to get it to stand firm. They therefore took a little
innocent girl, placed her in a chair by a table, and gave her playthings
and sweetmeats. While she thus sat enjoying herself, twelve masons built
an arch over her, which, when completed, they covered with earth to the
sound of drums and trumpets. By this process the walls were made
solid.”[131]
“Thuringian legend declares that to make the castle of Liebenstein fast
and impregnable, a child was bought for hard money of its mother, and
walled in. It was eating a cake while the masons were at work, the story
goes, and it cried, ‘Mother, I see thee still;’ then later, ‘Mother, I
see thee a little still;’ and as they put in the last stone, ‘Mother,
now I see thee no more.’”[132]
A similar story is told of a Slavic town on the Danube. A plague
devastated it, and it was determined to build it anew, with a new
citadel. “Acting on the advice of their wisest men, they sent out
messengers before sunrise one morning in all directions, with orders to
seize upon the first living creature they should meet. The victim proved
to be a child (_Dyetina_, archaic form of _Ditya_), who was buried alive
under the foundation-stone of the new citadel. The city was on that
account called Dyetinets [or Detinetz], a name since applied to any
citadel.”[133]
It is even said that “when, a few years ago, the Bridge Gate of the
Bremen city walls was demolished, the skeleton of a child was found
imbedded in the foundations.”[134]
A Scottish legend tells that St. Columba found himself unable to build a
cathedral on the island of Iona unless he would secure its stability and
safety by the blood of a human sacrifice. Thereupon he took his
companion, Oran, and buried him alive at the foundations of the
structure, having no trouble after that.[135]
And it is said that under the walls of the only two round towers of the
ancient Irish examined, human skeletons were found buried.[136]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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