Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

Superstitious practices with axes 699
On this Sir Richard Jebb remarked :
'Some
child's-game, of which
nothing is known. It may have consisted, for instance, in one of the
players bringing down his hand edgewise ("hatchet") on the other's
clenched fist, before he could snatch it away. That the words are not
names which the guest calls the children—as they have usually been
explained^—is clear from... the text, which shows that the children
said them too. Casaubon's theory that the "wine-skin" and "hatchet"
were little toys... hung round the children's necks, which the guest
takes up and names successively, supposes the children to be in-
fants.' The latest editors, J. M. Edmonds and G. E. V. Austen,
likewise conclude that the words in question 'refer to some children's
game, or possibly to an early lesson in spelling-.' More probably
Casaubon was right in suggesting the amulets hung round the necks
of children {perideraiay. The imperial cabinet at Vienna possesses
a handsome gold necklace to which are attached no fewer than fifty
of these charms, including an excellent little hatchet (fig. 633)^. And
the Museum at Reading has several bronze models of similar shape
found during the excavations at Silchester (fig. 634)®. Analogous
examples doubtless exist in other collections. They attest the
curious fact that the dreaded weapon of the Thunderer can degenerate
into an infant's toy without losing all trace of its superhuman quality.
Pliny" mentions, on the authority of 'OsthanesV that one species
Sir J. E. Sandys (London 1909), leaves text, translation, and notes unaltered, so far as
this passage is concerned.
1 E.g. by H. G. Liddell— R. Scott A Greek-English Lexicon^ Oxford 1897 pp. 232
s.v. d