Adder stone
As Hühnergott is popularly called a stone with a naturally formed hole.
Description and occurrence
Stones of this type are often flint nodules with herausgewitterten chalk retention. The "real " Chicken God has a hole diameter of about 5-8 mm, sometimes remnants of a once- embedded fossil Seelilienstängels (see Paramoudra to the theory about the origin of the holes). In Germany Hühnergötter come to the East and North Sea coast before ( for example, on the beaches of the North Frisian Islands) and in glacial gravels of the interior and are among tourists as a lucky charm a popular souvenir. Elsewhere in Germany are those formations rarely found or unknown as a concept.
Magic
The term Hühnergott and the idea of being able to protect interpreted as an amulet relevant articles, the poultry against evil spirits come from a very ancient Slavic folk beliefs. In the present case it comes to the defense of the harmful influence of a female house spirit, the so-called Kikimora.
The Kikimora is for Poltergeist rededicated old Slavic deity. Your is said among other things that she spins yarns, rumbles, the person who sees it brings bad luck - and the house poultry or steals it prevents them from laying eggs. To ward off the evil influence, has the severed neck of a jug, or a stone to be hung with a natural hole at the stables. Read, for example, in the resulting in the 19th century and to this day among scholars as interested laymen spoke very popular dictionary of the Great Russian language of Vladimir Dal. The assumption that it was a belief of the Crimean Tatars, as occurs for example in the below-mentioned narrative Yevtushenko, therefore, falls short. The Crimean Tatars have adopted here with some probability ideas of their Slavic neighbors.
The word Kuriny bog (Russian куриный бог; Hühnergott ) in turn called in Slavic languages not only perforated bricks, but also other cars and shattered objects, such as old vessels without soil or worn bast shoes.
Perforated bricks as protective amulets have played a role in the past in Europe and beyond. Busy that is, for example, for the Germanic, such as the Anglo-Saxon and Alemannic, as well as the French folk belief. So they were hung, for example, in Switzerland and in France in cow and horse stables to keep livestock from misfortune. In Germany, such ideas were disseminated. Although the hole stones " Trutensteine ", " Schratensteine " or were similarly named, but it was just like the chicken god to the defense of witches and ghosts, just the " turkeys " ( alternative spellings: Druden, Truden ) or the " mermen " and their thought evil spell. Interestingly, this popular belief has an analogue in the East Slavs, as the cattle god ( bog skotij, russ скотий бог ) was called. Similar to the chicken served God for this, among other things perforated stones, which were hung in a conspicuous place in order to avoid " evil eye " and to summon the prestigious among other things as a protector of cattle pagan Slavic god Veles. Not to mention to stick with that described in some relation of Hühnergötter to the Germanic god of thunder Thor ( Donar ), which includes among others the chicken was said to be holy, is not irrelevant, because the Slavic deities Veles ( Volos ), whose mostly as Slavic chief deity considered one opponent Perun and the Germanic god of thunder Thor have a number of similar traits.
Occurrence in the literature
Since the term Hühnergott in older German reference works of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially in the German language by the Brothers Grimm dictionary is missing, it is considered to be a neologism. Longer time was suspected, the German term goes back to the 1966 translation of the same name published in 1963 by Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote novella by Thomas Reschke. There are now but more evidence that the term Hühnergott already exists a long time in German. The oldest known evidence dates, like friends Reschke have determined on its request, from which in 1927 by de Gruyter published in German language book by D. Zelenin to East Slavic folklore ( see below).
The term " chicken god" was in the novel " Ivan III. " Valeri Jaswizki, published in 1953, used in the publishing Rütten & Loening, Berlin W8, in the translation by Alexander Böltz. There is in Volume I, page 98: " On her neck [ the chickens ] colorful stones were tied with twine, which Hühnergötter ' they guarded against disease. "
The term was in the 1975 input -Duden German Democratic Republic, but was eradicated back in 1990 according to common Duden. However, published in 2000, 22nd edition of the band The German spelling lists him again.
In Austria stones with small holes called lens Stones: When looking through the hole, everything seems magnified.
Synonyms
Perforated brick, Drudenstein, lens Stone