MUS2026-187 - museum specimen
Villefranche-de-Lauragais fish-tailed rhombe
France - Haute-Garonne - Lauragais - Europe
Play / practical
Source term: rhombe
rhombe: French technical/common term for a whirled sounding slat (bullroarer).
Ten grams of fir with its base cut into a fish tail — whirled on its single long string, the little rhombe from Villefranche-de-Lauragais 'imitates the rumble of thunder,' its museum notice says. It entered the national collections in 1893 from the Lauragais wheat country south-east of Toulouse, recorded as both made and used in the town — a rare double certainty for a French folk bullroarer.
Petite planchette de bois (sapin) dont la base est taillée en forme de queue de poisson
Small wooden board (fir) whose base is cut in the shape of a fish tail
POP/Joconde notice 50020020791 (Mucem 1893.3.4)
- Object
- Thin fir board, 13 x 9 x 0.4 cm and ten grams, its base cut into a fish tail, with a single long string; Mucem/MNATP 1893.3.4, acquired 1893.
- Function
- Filed by the museum among games and toys ('jeux - jouets'); its notice records only that the little rhombe imitates the rumble of thunder when whirled.
- Map confidence
- high - OpenStreetMap Villefranche-de-Lauragais commune anchor matching the record's lieu d'exécution/lieu d'utilisation; not a documented performance site.
- Source location
Page references
Joconde 50020020791; Mucem 1893.3.4
- Toy / secular survival