FT261

The earliest observations of lightning inspired eldritch dread; not only did it come from the skies, the domain of gods, but it was powerful, deadly, unpredictable and capricious – a demonic trickster. It left an important question: why was one person or one place sing­led out for a strike? It could only be, it was impeccably reasoned, that such victims and locations had been chosen for a demonstrat­ion of divine power. Lightning was an instrument of punishment or selection. [1] In cultures as widespread as Zulu and Roman, those struck dead by thunderbolts were refused burial in sacred ground. Lightning-blasted trees or places were shunned, or sometimes hall­owed in the belief that the gods had indicated where a shrine should be built.