Builders' rites

Attachments

Historians and folklorists in the 19th and early 20th centuries were fascinated by possible "foundation sactifices". Jacob Grimm remarked, "It was often thought necessary to entomb live animals and even men in the foundation, on which the structure was to be raised, to secure immovable stability."[2] Sabine Baring-Gould likewise claimed, "The old pagan laid the foundation of his house and fortress in blood."[3] The 19th-century Folk-Lore Journal claimed that "under the walls of two round towers in Ireland (the only ones examined) human skeletons [were] discovered."[4] In the 15th century, the wall of Holsworthy church was built over a living human being, and when this became unlawful, images of living beings were substituted.[1]