Foundation Myths

Foundation Myths

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4 Responses

  1. Daniel Parkinson says:

    I am sure that  animal
    I am sure that  animal skeletons and witch bottles are sometimes found under the door stones and in the walls of old country houses as if the custom carried on in some form or other. Whether that is proof of any truly ancient tradition surviving is debatable however.

  2. Columbine says:

     Actually a friend of mine
     Actually a friend of mine in Bisley, Gloucestershire found a mummified cat and a pair of shoes in the wall of her house when they had to repair the attic. I don’t know the age of the house but the items had been deliberately put there- the cat was wrapped carefully in a cloth and sewn in.  

  3. Ian Topham says:

    Thinking back to poor Oran
    Thinking back to poor Oran and St Columba.  I read that St Columba wanted to say fairwell to his friend, so had the slab that covered Orans head removed.  Oran was still alive (so they buried him alive) and started to blaspheme and curse.  He had probably changed his mind I suspect.  Columba however took a dim view of it and possibly thought Oran was being possessed, so he had the slab put back in place.

  4. Seannachaidh says:

    Archeaologists discovered

    Archeaologists discovered that some neolithic houses in Scotland had bones buried in the floor, which had previously been buried elsewhere, perhaps many times, travelling with the family.  They concluded the bones were connected to ancestor reverence. 

    The ancestors of a clan were sometimes thought to be animals; cats, ravens, eagles, wolves.  Perhaps this was partly due the idea that some animals ate the flesh from exposed bodies to deflesh them for bone burials, and maybe in doing so helped the person who had died transmigrate into, for instance, an eagle. 

    I wonder if the custom of having an animal or human buried in the foundations of a house had it’s origin in the idea of ancestors protecting the home.