The Bullroarer Atlas

No. BRUGGEMANN1896-001

Stolzenau childhood Schwirrholz

Germany · Stolzenau · Kingdom of Hanover · modern Lower Saxony · Central Europe

Play / practical

Alkmaar brommer: a long flat wooden blade with a rounded tip, worn painted decoration and a cord through a hole near its squared end.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. A Dutch brommer, a rectangular wooden blade, Alkmaar. Image source
Scanned German journal page 388 with Brüggemann’s section on the Stolzenau boys’ Schwirrholz toy in the right column, including its effect on cattle.
Plate II. Brüggemann's Stolzenau account remembers the familiar boys' toy and the cattle it could send bolting. Public domain · Image source

Source term: Schwirrholz

Schwirrholz: generic German bullroarer term; no special Stolzenau name is recorded

In Stolzenau in the 1860s, the Schwirrholz was a familiar boys' toy: a ruler-like wooden slat, notched near one end, looped to a whip and swept in a circle. Its roar could spill into village mischief too, sending the cattle of disliked herders bolting across the fields.

ein wohlbekanntes und beliebtes Spielzeug

a familiar and popular toy

Brüggemann 1896:388

Particulars

Object
Elongated ruler-like wooden slat with both narrow edges notched at one end, attached to a whip by a simple loop and swung in a circle, made exactly like the Galician Schwirrholz.
Function
Familiar and popular childhood toy; boys sometimes used it to make the cattle of disliked herders bolt.

Source

Fr. Brüggemann, 'Das Schwirrholz im Hannöverschen', Globus 70 (1896), p. 388

View the source

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.