{"id":"MUS2026-057","label":"Thunner-spehl, whirled against thunderbolts","people_or_site":"Scottish","country_current":"United Kingdom","historic_region":"Scotland","macroregion":"Europe / British Isles","local_name":"THUNNER-SPEHL","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Roughly carved slip of pine with serrated edges, 197 mm long, its whirling string threaded through a hole at one end; from Knockando parish, Elgin.","function_summary":"Thunder-charm, whirled in storms to make the thunder cease or the thunderbolt miss; later swung simply for the noise.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"pitt_rivers","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39650","page_or_plate":"1893.56.2","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate culture/locality centroid","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire boys whirled a notched shaving of wood on a string during thunderstorms, in the belief that the thunder would cease or that the thunderbolt would not strike. The anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon, who gathered British bull-roarers for the chapter on the instrument in \"The Study of Man\" (1898), reported that it was known as a thunder-spell in parts of Scotland and in Aberdeen as a thunder-bolt, and that a Liverpool Museum informant told him the things were made by farm-servants and villagers and were quite common in those counties. The earliest notice, from Galloway in 1822, describes a thunder-spale whirled \"beneath the school-yard 'dike'\" as suggesting the notion of a distant thunder-clap. Two Scottish specimens entered the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1893, recorded under the local name thunner-spehl.","pull_quote":"whirled round the head, under the belief that the thunder would cease, or that the thunderbolt would not strike","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"W. Gregor, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland (1881), 153, as quoted in Dictionaries of the Scots Language, SND s.v. \"thunner spale\"","term_gloss":"Scots \"thunner-spehl\" — thunder-spell; a notched wooden slip whirled on a string to imitate or ward off thunder.","cls":"weather","class_label":"Weather / fertility magic","color":"#2F6FA3","is_candidate":false,"flags":["weather","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"etymology":"Transparent Scots dialect compound naming the instrument as a charm or spell against thunder/lightning.","literal_gloss":"thunder-spell","semantic_cluster":"weather; charm; transparent_compound","etymology_confidence":"medium","sources":[{"citation":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, object 1893.56.2","url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39650","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260917174840/https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39663"},{"citation":"W. Gregor, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland (1881), p. 153, quoted in Dictionaries of the Scots Language"},{"citation":"Dictionaries of the Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary, s.v. \"thunner spale,\" quoting Gregor (1881), p. 153"}],"source_citations":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, object 1893.56.2; W. Gregor, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland (1881), p. 153, quoted in Dictionaries of the Scots Language; Dictionaries of the Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary, s.v. \"thunner spale,\" quoting Gregor (1881), p. 153","source_display":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, object 1893.56.2; W. Gregor, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland (1881), p. 153, quoted in Dictionaries of the Scots Language; Dictionaries of the Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary, s.v. \"thunner spale,\" quoting Gregor (1881), p. 153","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Roughly carved slip of pine with serrated edges, 197 mm long, its whirling string threaded through a hole at one end; from Knockando parish, Elgin.","function_display":"Thunder-charm, whirled in storms to make the thunder cease or the thunderbolt miss; later swung simply for the noise.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"scottish","display_name":"Thunner-spehl, whirled against thunderbolts","image":{"full":"assets/objects/prm/prm_39650.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/prm/thumbs/prm_39650_thumb.jpg","credit":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1893.56.2)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39650","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Thunner-spehl from Knockando, Elgin: a rough slip of pine with serrated edges, now in the Pitt Rivers Museum."},"slug":"mus2026-057-scottish"}