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Sacred Stones 83
the Sacred White Stone. Mons. Holmboe, in his little work,
Buddhism en Norz'cge, published in 1857, after speaking of
sacred stones as known in Kashmir and India, goes on to say :
— " It is most singular to find traces of the same customs in
Norway. The museum at Bergen possesses three stones of a
greyish white marble. One was brought from a large Haug
(or tumulus) on a farm called Glein, in the island of Daumcie,
off the coast of Heligoland. This stone is like those from
Balabhipura, in Sorath " (Valabhi in Kathiawad), "three feet
high, and nineteen inches in diameter. Both tumulus and
stone were formerly held sacred. The two others were not
found in tumuli, but such was probably their original position." ^
Another Norwegian antiquarian, Mons. Liligren, relates that
in the year 18 17, in a field in the parish of Sparhoe, in the
diocese of Trondhjem, a stone of precisely the same form
was discovered, and another in Vestmanland, in Sweden,
and he gives it as his opinion that they had been wor-
shipped as gods. Mr Christie also speaks of a similar stone,
" which tradition says existed formerly near the town of
Tromsoe, in Finmark, and was worshipped by the Lap-
landers, and that the Bishop in consequence had it removed
and thrown into the river." Mr Christie says also that he
himself had seen "on the farm called Opsanger, in the parish
of Quindherred, in the diocese of Bergen, on the summit of
a larg^e tumulus, a stone of the .same kind." Stones of this
form, when found in Norway, are supposed to date from the
Iron Age in Scandinavia. In another place Mons. Holmboe
says : " According to the ancient laws of Scandinavia, put
Norway.
' Since this was written at least ten more such stones have been found in