The symbolism of querns and millstones
SUSAN WATTS
Watts, S. 2014. The symbolism of querns and millstones. AmS-Skrifter 24, 51–64, Stavanger. ISSN 0800-0816, ISBN 978-82-7760-158-8
From saddle querns to rotary querns to millstones powered firstly by human and animal power and later by water and wind, querns
and millstones are one of our oldest and longest used craft tools. They have been used for grinding many different materials but
are synonymous with grinding grain. From the earliest cultivation of cereals in the Near East some 12,000 years ago through to the
advent of roller milling in the 19th century, querns and millstones were thus of vital importance at a daily subsistence level and in
consequence familiar to everyone, as indeed they still are in some parts of the world. As such everyday tools they have been wellplaced as a medium through which to explain some of life’s mysteries, from the turning of the seasons to why the sea is salt. The
symbolic and metaphoric meanings of querns and millstones can be shown to be linked not only to what they ground, who used
them and how they operated but also to their transforming properties, turning a raw material into a refined, usable product, and
even potentially to their size and colour. Bringing together mythology, legend and literature with history, archaeology and living
tradition, this paper explores the symbolism and meaning of querns and millstones from the prehistoric period through to the
present day.
Susan Watts, Devon County Coucil, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter, Devon EX2 4QW, England. Phone: (+44) 01392382994.
E-mail: susan.watts@devon.gov.uk
Keywords: quern, millstone, symbolism, transformation
Introduction
A symbol may be defined as “something that stands for,
represents, or denotes something else” (OED Online
2012). This may be due to its analogous or similar qualities to that which it represents or by association, be
that in fact or in thought. Querns and millstones can
be used for grinding many different materials but, first
and foremost, they are instruments for grinding grain.
As such they are intimately associated with the daily
provision of food. As Robert Jamieson’s poem states,
“The music for a hungry wame [stomach]/Is grindin’ o’
the quernie” (Colville 1892:126). Thomson, travelling
in the Near East in the 19th century, commented on the
“hum of the hand-mill” which he expected to hear every
morning and evening in Arab villages and camps. The
sound, he said, “is suggestive of hot bread and a warm
welcome when hungry and weary” (Thomson 1985:526
[1877]). In this respect it is easy to understand why, in
the Bible, the laws of Moses state that one should not
take an upper millstone as a pledge, for that is taking
a man’s life away, and why the absence of the sound of
millstones is used as a sign of desolation, symbolic of a
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place that is uninhabited and forsaken (Deuteronomy
24.6, Jeremiah 25.10, Revelation 18.22 (Authorised
King James Version)). Yet the task of milling is also
used in the Bible as a symbol of toil, drudgery and
slavery. Isaiah, predicting the fall of Babylon says,
“Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of
Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne…Take
the millstones, and grind meal…” (Isaiah 47.1–2).
Symbolic meanings are not fixed, however, but
dependent upon particular social, ideological and
contextual circumstances and subject to spatial
and temporal change and adaptation. In addition,
as Gerrard (2003) states, “the symbolic meanings of
object[s] can change according to the context in which
[they are] found”, embodying, for example, a specific
person, place, task or event. They may also be peculiar
to particular communities and impossible to understand by those who do not have the same world view
(Tilley 1999:9). The symbolism appropriated to milling
stones is no exception. Throughout the 12,000 years
or so of their history, from the earliest saddle querns
and the beginnings of agriculture in the Neolithic Near
Susan Watts
East, through the introduction of the rotary quern in
the Iron Age to millstones turned firstly by human and
animal power and subsequently by water and wind,
querns and millstones have been important to people
at a daily subsistence level. As Crawford states, they are
“an excellent instance of necessary things for they grind
the corn which for an agricultural people is the chief
basis of life” (Crawford 1953:98–99). It is perhaps not
surprising, therefore, that such “necessary” and consequently familiar “things” have been used as a means to
explain various natural and human phenomena such
as why the sea is salt, the turning of the seasons and
the place of men and women in the world. This paper
explores some of the symbolic and metaphoric meanings that have been appropriated to querns and millstones by virtue of their physical properties, the act and
motion of grinding, their association with women and
with grain and the harvest. It begins, however, with a
brief outline of previous research on the subject. It is
based on a paper given at the Millstone Colloquium
in Bergen, Norway in 2011 and also taken in part from
the author’s PhD thesis on the structured deposition of
querns in the south-west of England (Watts 2012).
Previous work on the symbolism
of querns and millstones
The study of querns and millstones as a “distinctive
historical interest” (Bennett & Elton 1898:vii), really
only began in the late 19th century, at a time when the
roller milling industry was expanding rapidly in the
western world, leading to the demise of the traditional
country corn mill. Early articles and publications by
Barnwell (1881), Bennett & Elton (1898–1904) and
Kozmin (1917), for example, focused on the history and
development of milling, incorporating ethnographic
observations together with classical and biblical
quotations. Typological development remained a key
theme throughout the 20th century with publications
by authors such as Curwen (1937), Storck & Teague
(1952), Moritz (1958), Bucur (1979–1983) and Carelli
& Kresten (1997). The 20th century also saw a growing
interest in quarries and production, an interest which
intensified in the 1980s with, for example, articles
by Hayden (1987), Peacock (1987), Williams-Thorpe
(1988) and Wright (1988). These topics continue to
be an important aspect of quern research today.
Typological, historical and ethnographic studies have
also been enjoying something of a renaissance over
the past decade, helped in no small part by a flurry of
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international conferences which have greatly stimulated interest in both querns and millstones. Recent
publications include Adams (2002), Procopiou & Treuil
(2002), Watts (2002), Barboff et al. (2003), Frankel
(2003), Shaffrey (2006), Hamon & Graefe (2008),
Heslop (2008), Williams & Peacock (2011) and Hamon
& Gall (2013) to name but a few.
By comparison, the symbolism of querns and millstones has been a relatively little researched subject
and generally separate from other strands of quern
and millstone study. Nevertheless, it is a wide-ranging
theme and consequently most authors have tended to
focus on a specific aspect of that symbolism or on a
particular type of mill or period. Earlier articles such
as Rydberg’s section on The Great World-Mill (Rydberg
1887:79–83) and Johnston (1908–1909) show that the
mill in Scandinavian and Teutonic mythologies in
particular has long been a fascinating subject. It is also
one that continues to intrigue. References to such tales
are included, for example, in Santillana & Dechend
(1969). They discuss the evolution of an ancient belief
in the cyclical nature of the world based on the procession of the polestar and the circle of the heavens which
is likened to the turning of a millstone. Santillana
and Dechend’s arguments and conclusions have been
widely criticised but the book nevertheless contains
much detail that can be further investigated. Tolley
(1994–1997) compares the meaning and origins of two
tales, the Sampo and Grottasöngr, noting that whereas
the Sampo only produces good things in the form of
wealth, meal and salt, the Grotti can grind ill as well as
good fortune.
As with other aspects of quern studies, articles
relating to the symbolism of querns and millstones
have increased over the last decade, including Worthen
(2006) who looks at mills, particularly windmills,
as represented in medieval art and literature and
Ambrose (2006), who explores the meaning of the
mystic or Eucharistic mill carved on one of the capitals at Vézelay Abbey, Burgundy, France. Scandinavian
mythology also remains popular, with online articles
such as Jesch (2010) and Stone (2010). On a completely
different note, Hall (2011) delves into the fascinating
issue of decorated querns.
There are also a number of references to the meanings
of querns in the archaeological literature pertaining to
querns and their structured deposition, that is, their
purposeful placement in the archaeological record for
reasons that had meaning to the person(s) who placed
them. Again, this strand of inquiry has flourished
recently as such research has taken a more holistic
AmS-Skrifter 24 The symbolism of querns and millstones
approach. Merrifield, for example, comments on the
“special mystique [that] seems to have been associated with corn-grinding stones” which he presumes
is “because of their importance in providing the daily
bread” (Merrifield 1987:33–34). Hill (1995:108, 131)
refers to the transforming powers of the quern, turning
raw materials into usable products, and suggests that
it was symbolically linked to the preparation of food,
gender and the life cycle of the household. Fendin
(2000, 2006) and also Brück (2001:155) see the grinding
action of the quern, which gradually wears the stones,
as a metaphor for the passage of time and the transformation from life to death as witnessed in human and
agricultural life cycles. Links between querns and agricultural fertility are made by Proctor (2002), Heslop
(2008:80) and Jodry & Féliu (2009). Lidström Holberg
(2004) on the other hand, and also Heslop (2008:75),
suggest that the use of and deposition of quernstones
was one of the ways in which gender relations were
created and expressed. Finally, the author discusses
the symbolic properties of querns in her PhD on the
structured deposition of querns (Watts 2012, 2014) and
Peacock also explores the subject in The Stone of Life
(Peacock 2013).
The action of grinding and
physical properties
The published literature, such as that mentioned above,
suggests that the symbolic and metaphoric meanings
of querns and millstones drew upon not only what the
stones were used for and who used them but also how
they operated and the grinding action they performed.
The first century Roman writer, Seneca, quoting
Posidonius (ca. 135–51 BC), refers to the grinding
action of querns, describing the tasks of milling and
baking as imitating the work of the teeth and stomach
(Seneca V Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales 90.22–23). In
his poem “The Windmill”, the 19th century American
poet Henry Longfellow also makes a similar analogy:
“Behold! a giant am I!/Aloft here in my tower,/With my
granite jaws I devour/The maize, and the wheat, and
the rye,/And grind them into flour.” (Jerrold 19--?:532).
Today, for the Betamiliba of West Africa, the correlation
between teeth and grinding is a key part of their world
view. Their houses are metaphors for the human body
and so are constructed of flesh (earth), bone (stone) and
blood (water). The door is the mouth and the granaries
the stomach. It is perhaps not unexpected, therefore,
that just inside the mouth are the teeth, that is the
household quern (Tilley 1999:44–45).
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Physical properties, such as size and weight, are also
important. As Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina point
out, “the physical properties of materials such as stone,
wood, water and fire … resist certain interpretations
and invite others. In such cases their materiality may
be a significant element of their metaphorical associations” (Parker Pearson & Ramilisonina 1998:310). A
quern or millstone is a durable item, harder than the
material it grinds. This “invites” such metaphors as
“his heart is … as hard as a piece of the nether millstone” (Job 41.24). In the book of Revelation, an angel
takes up “a stone like a great millstone, and cast[s] it
into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great
city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no
more at all” (Revelation 18.21). We refer figuratively to
having a millstone around our neck when describing
a heavy burden we bear, which derives from Jesus’s
saying, “whoso shall offend one of these little ones
which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were
drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18.6). It may
be just such a load that is symbolised by the millstone
in Albrecht Dürer’s allegorical engraving Melencolia
(1514). The picture, which is thought to metaphorically depict waiting for inspiration to strike, is full of
symbolism and has been the subject of much discussion and interpretation beyond the scope of this article.
Indirect references to this quotation also occur in the
lives of some saints. St. Hallvard, patron saint of Oslo,
for example, was killed whilst defending a woman
accused of theft. The woman was also killed and
was buried on the beach. The perpetrators, however,
attempted to dispose of St. Hallvard’s body by tying it
to a millstone and throwing it into the Drammensfjord.
The body, however, refused to sink and consequently
their crimes were discovered (Heraldry of the World
2012). St. Piran, patron saint of Cornwall, was also tied
to a millstone and thrown off a cliff in Ireland but he did
not drown. Instead he floated on the millstone to the
Cornish coast, landing safely on Perran Beach (Jones
1997). St. Anastasius the fuller was not so fortunate. He
was tied to a millstone and drowned in Salona Bay in
AD 304 (Mackie 2003:220). St. Victor of Marseilles, an
officer in the Roman army, was martyred on the orders
of the Emperor Maximian ca. AD 290 by being crushed
between two millstones (Bond 1995:32). However,
whereas St. Piran, St. Anastasius and St. Hallvard (see
below) are frequently depicted with their millstones
(Fig. 1), St. Victor is usually shown with a windmill
although the latter was not invented until some 850
years after his death.
Susan Watts
Fig. 1. St. Anastasius with a millstone around his neck, the
symbol of his martyrdom. Cathedral of St. Domnius, Split.
Photo: Jocelyn Rendall.
Fig. 2. Two saddle querns of different colours, from different
sources, found side by side in the ditch of a Bronze Age
enclosure at Sigwells, Somerset (centimetre scale). Photo: Susan
Watts.
The colour of querns
Another physical attribute that also appears to come
into play, particularly regarding the structured deposition of querns in the prehistoric period, is colour.
A number of archaeologists have commented on
the colour of querns found in prehistoric contexts in
England. Chadwick Hawkes (1969:6), for example, noted
that, although the saddle quern and rubber deposited in a Bronze Age pit at Winnall near Winchester,
Hampshire were a pair, they were of a dark brown
coarse grained sandstone and a white fine-medium
grained sandstone respectively. At the Ben Bridge site
at Chew Valley Lake, Somerset a probable Neolithic
saddle quern of Old Red Sandstone was found with
a rubber of Corallian sandstone (Rahtz & Greenfield
1977:202). The combination of the dark sandy colour
of the Corallian sandstone and the red of the Old Red
Sandstone would have been quite noticeable. Two
56
saddle querns, one of Upper Greensand and the other
of a red igneous rock, which were found side by side in
the ditch of a Bronze Age metalworking enclosure at
Sigwells, Somerset, also present a striking appearance
(Fig. 2).
The meaning of colour is difficult to quantify. Red
is a particularly significant colour with many different
meanings. In our own society a red traffic light means
stop, red roses are a token of love and a red letter day is
a good day but to be in the red (financially) is not good.
In the Church of England, red vestments and hangings
are used at Pentecost, symbolising the tongues of fire
that came down on the disciples. Other colours have
meanings too – we go green with envy, feel blue, fall
into a brown study and clouds have silver linings. Black
is associated with mourning, white with light, purity
and weddings (papers in Gage et al. 1999 and Jones
& MacGregor 2002 discuss the meanings of colours).
AmS-Skrifter 24 The symbolism of querns and millstones
The use of different coloured stones, in particular
grey, red and white has been noted in the construction of some Scottish stone circles and white quartz
is a feature of many prehistoric ceremonial or ritual
sites (Darvill 2002, Jones & Taylor 2004:110, Bradley
2005a:106–108). In the Roman world white pebbles
symbolised happiness. More recently, in Mesoamerica,
green stones were associated with health (Evans
1897:468, Horsfall 1987:346–347). However, as Scarre
(2002:238) points out, the significance of the colour
may not lie so much in its visual aspect but in the fact
that it denotes the origin of the object. The saddle quern
from Ben Bridge mentioned above was of local origin
but its Corallian sandstone rubber is considered to
have come from the Westbury area of Wiltshire, some
32 km away, while the green and red saddle querns at
Sigwells derived from sources 15 km to the east and
40 km to the west of the site respectively (Rahtz &
Greenfield 1977:202, Tabor 2008:65).
The structured deposition of two different coloured
quernstones may, therefore, represent a relationship
of some form, the different colours symbolising the
different parties involved. The site at Sigwells is thought
to have been that of a short-lived metalworking and
craft fair, where people came together to practice their
crafts and ply their trade. The two querns may have
been placed in the ditch as part of the “official” closure
of the fair, to create a bond between the peoples who
met there and, in doing so, to reinforce social identity
and kinships (Tabor 2008:61–68). Alternatively, such
querns could represent, in coloured form, a particular
myth or story, or symbolise a transformation from one
state to another (after Young 2006:179). Is it more than
coincidence, therefore, that, within a metalworking
context, the red and green quernstones from Sigwells
are reminiscent of the colours of molten metal, the
mould and the bronze object as it emerges from the
mould. The meaning behind the deposition, as Tilley
(1999:9) says, may only be read by the understanding
eye but it is nevertheless obvious, even to the uninitiated, that depositions such as this were made with
purpose and intent and that they have a story to tell.
Decoration
A number of querns and millstones are notable for
their decoration. This is an adjunct feature, an adornment that moves the stone beyond its practical milling
function, enabling it to operate on a higher plane and
increasing its qualitative, rather than its quantitative
57
output. (In this sense the inscriptions on some Roman
military querns, which identify the stone as the property of a particular contubernium, cannot be considered as decorations.) Some decoration is purely
abstract, such as the lines and swirls inscribed on a
number of Iron Age rotary quern stones from Ireland,
Wales and Cumbria, England (Griffiths 1951, Caulfield
1977:121–123, Ingle 1987:13). The patterns are similar
to that found on contemporary high status metalwork
bringing, as Bradley (2005b:101) points out, the work
of highly skilled craftsmen into the domestic sphere.
Although we may not understand the meaning behind
such decoration, it is clear that it raised the respective
quern out of the everyday. More explicit perhaps is the
meaning behind the phallus found carved upon several
fragments of Roman querns, such as that from the
extra mural area of the fort at Rocester, Staffordshire.
The phallus was an often used image in the Roman
world, functioning as both a fertility symbol and a
sign against evil (Frere et al. 1983:302, Henig 1984:167,
185–186). The sign of the cross carved on some medieval and later stones, such as that on a medieval quernstone from Dunadd, Argyll, Scotland (Campbell 1987)
or that seen by the author on a millstone dated 1846
in Milton Mill, Preston Richard, Cumbria, may also
have been intended to ward off evil or to have been a
blessing, or to denote that the stones were for grinding
a particular product. Another form of decoration takes
the form of human heads carved around the spouts of
some medieval pot querns. Hall (2011) suggests that
these are examples of medieval humour as the ground
meal is spewed through the carving’s mouth. Added to
which is the possibility that the heads represent those
of real people. However, these querns may also have a
Christian message. Jesus states (Matthew 15.11) that it
is not what goes into a man’s mouth that defiles him
but what comes out. Such pot querns, which are not
uncommon finds on medieval monastic sites, can thus
be seen to teach and amuse at the same time.
Anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figures are also
a feature of the ornately decorated metates dated ca.
AD 500–1500 found in Central America, particularly
in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and also Panama. The side
panels and legs may be carved with abstract geometric
designs, human figures or animals, and occasionally
a carved head of a bird or jaguar is added at one end.
These elaborate carvings are thought to be related to
the function of the metate for grinding maize, or chocolate, and to have been used in ceremonies and rituals
concerned with agricultural fertility and the harvest
(Precolumbian Stone 2011).
Susan Watts
Fig. 3. A “sleeping fox”
quern from Merona,
northern Italy. The
quern, which was used
for grinding salt, is
thought to date to the
17th century. Photo: Guy
Clausse.
There is also presumably a meaning behind the carvings of curled-up, sleeping foxes that are found on the
upper stones of a particular type of post-medieval/
early modern rotary quern that was used for grinding
salt (Fig. 3).
Examples are known from northern Italy and the
Auvergne, France and there is also one on display in
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, which probably
originated on the continent. Two further examples, on
which the fox has more the appearance of a hound have
also come to light recently in London. Again, these
may have come from the continent (Watts 2011:342,
Guy Clausse, pers. comm., John Cruse, pers. comm.).
At the time of writing, a specific link between querns
and salt and foxes/hounds has not come to light but it
could perhaps derive from a local folk tale or relate to
the maker’s name.
Symbols of men, women and
children
Although men may use querns in particular circumstances, such as in monastic institutions or for
grinding particular products such as tobacco, historic
and ethnographic evidence indicates that querns as
tools for preparing food are very much the province
of women (for example Livingstone 1887:384–387,
Richards 1939: 91–104, Hamilton 1980:5–6, 8, Englund
1991, Haaland 1997:378–379, Curtis 2001:115–116,
Ertug-Yaras 2002). It is through such gender-related
tasks that the distinctiveness of being female or
male is maintained. In classic Mayan culture, ca. AD
250–900, the role of women as providers of food was
subtly reinforced through the production of ceramic
figurines depicting women at domestic tasks including
corn grinding (Casalis 1861:141, Joyce et al. 1993,
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Lidström Holmberg 2004:227). Thus querns used in a
domestic context for the preparation of food can be
seen as symbolic of women, home and the family. In
early 20th century rural Mexico, for example, it was one
of the four items – hearth, griddle, grinding stone and
pot – considered necessary for the house (Brumfield
1991:237). It is not until grinding becomes a mechanised process that it becomes acceptable for men to
partake in, and indeed take over, the role of miller.
The association between querns and women is
further strengthened in some societies by lengthy
grinding sessions held as part of the rituals to celebrate female rites of passage. These sessions may be
communal, as with the Lala of Nigeria where all the
women of the village come together to grind corn to
mark the onset of puberty of a young girl (Kirk-Greene
1957). Saddle querns are placed around the inside of
a specially erected shelter in the centre of the village
and the women grind all day, keeping time to the beat
of drums and singing. Within the Hopi tribe of northeast Arizona, however, it is customary for the girl only
to perform the grinding ritual, grinding white, blue,
red, yellow and black maize within a darkened room
over a period of four days. A similar grinding ritual
is also performed by a Hopi bride before her wedding
(Bradfield 1973:34–37). In both Lala and Hopi societies, the use of querns in such contexts can be seen
as an affirmation and symbol of womanhood. The
transition from girl to woman is expressed symbolically through the transformation of corn to meal but
a proficiency at grinding also demonstrates that she
is well able to provide for her family (Katz 2003:46,
Lidström Holmberg 2004:227).
Although a clear link can be seen between querns
and women, this is but one way in which gender is
enacted through querns and millstones. Querns and
millstones comprise two stones which are brought
together for the action of grinding and are seen, therefore, as an ideal metaphor for the expression of gender
relations. The movement of the upper stone of a saddle
quern forward and back across the lower stone may be
seen to have an overtly sexual meaning, with the lower
stone being seen as female and the upper stone as male
(Lidström Holmberg 2004:225–228). The playing out
of the male/female sexual relationship can also be seen
in the rotary quern, the lower stone this time taking
the male role. Millstones are still described in feminine
terms in modern traditional milling terminology. The
central hole in the stone is called the eye, the midsection of the stone the breast and the outer section
the skirt. Likewise, the fitting on top of the spindle
AmS-Skrifter 24 The symbolism of querns and millstones
that knocks against the shoe, which hangs below the
hopper, to feed the grain into the eye of the runner
stone is called a damsel. It is often stated that the name
is due to the fact that it chatters (clatters) as it turns!
In some communities, however, such as the
Minyanka in Mali, the upper stones of saddle querns
represent children (Caroline Hamon, pers. comm.).
This may be due to the smaller size of the rubbing stone
and the fact that it is this stone which a woman has
most contact with as she works. Lidström Holmberg
(2004:229–230) makes an interesting association
between the deposition of upper stones in adult graves
and lower stones in the graves of children at the early
Neolithic sites at Fågelbacken and Östra Vrå, Sweden.
In western European Linearbandkeramik and postLinearbandkeramik cemeteries, querns tend to be
found in the graves of women and children, while at
Khirokitia, Cyprus there was an apparent preference
for querns with male rather than female burials (Brun
2001:116, Caroline Hamon, pers. comm.). Gimbutas
(1991:133) also noted that in central Europe querns
are found with both male and female Neolithic burials
although it is not clear whether these are upper and/or
lower stones. That direct correlations between male/
female/child and upper/lower stones should perhaps
not be presumed is also demonstrated by Indian nonvedic birth rituals in which the upper stone represents
both child and mother goddess. Painted and dressed,
the stone is passed around the cradle by the most
senior woman in attendance before being laid beside
the baby in a ceremony intended to bestow blessings on the child (Kosambi 1965:46). In addition, not
all Neolithic burials contain querns and northern
European chambered tombs, some of which have been
found to utilise querns within their construction, held
multiple disarticulated burials. There are, however,
other reasons to account for the presence of querns
in funerary contexts. They could have been placed as
grave goods to provide sustenance in the afterlife or
have been used in the preparation of a funerary feast
and subsequently taken out of use. Alternatively, they
may symbolise the cycle of life and death and regeneration as represented by the transformation of grain to
flour (see below) (Hill 1995:108, Bradley 2005b:107).
It is also possible, of course, that the quern fragments
reused in the construction of funerary monuments
simply represent the reuse of useful pieces of stone
but, given that such burial or memorial structures
are generally located away from domestic sites, the
implication is that the stones were specially brought
to these sites.
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Symbols of the harvest and
fertility
With the beginnings of agriculture in the Neolithic
period the harvest took on a new meaning, although
autumn would always have been a time of plenty in
terms of wild fruits, nuts and seeds. The cultivation
of grain is seen as symbolising mankind’s triumph
over nature (Ramminger 2008:42). The quern may be
seen, therefore, as a symbol of that triumph, representing cultured nature. This theme finds expression in
Cezanne’s painting, Woods with Millstone (1898–1900)
in which the millstone represents man amidst a forest
of natural chaos. With cultivation, however, came a new
regime of preparing the ground, sowing the seed and
harvesting and storing the grain both for consumption
and as seed corn for the following year. Communities
became “bound…to the soil” (Gimbutas 1982:11). In the
Near East the change from a hunter-gatherer society to
one based on farming is recorded in the Bible. When
God casts Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden, in
which they had been given the fruit of all the trees, he
tells them that the ground is cursed and “Thorns also
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt
eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread” (Genesis 2.16, 3.2, 17–19). To subsistence based communities the success of the harvest is
paramount. A poor harvest leads to hardship, even
starvation and death. It is important, therefore, that the
ground is prepared and crops sown at the most auspicious and propitious times. To this end, in the prehistoric period and later, the gods were consulted and
appropriate gifts and offerings made (Green 1997:37).
Querns, as a key part of the process that turns grain
into meal, may have been seen as symbolic of grain and
of the harvest and thus considered suitable offerings,
on one hand for the success of the harvest, or on the
other hand in recompense for its failure. This offers one
potential explanation for the presence of quernstones
as structured deposits in Iron Age grain storage pits on
sites in southern Britain. Alternatively, they may have
been propitiatory offerings for pits that had lost their
watertight seal and whose contents had gone mouldy
(Cunliffe 1992, Watts 1999). The lurid colours and the
smell of the mouldy grain may have been seen as indicative of the presence of evil spirits, reason enough for
the abandonment of the pit and the placing of propitiatory gifts (Reynolds 1979:76, Watts 1999).
Gimbutas (1987:20) makes reference to large flat
stones, dedicated to or representing Ops, a Roman
goddess of earth fertility, which were stored in pits
Susan Watts
and covered with straw. They were taken out once a
year during the harvest season; in the Roman world
her festival was celebrated on 25 August (Jordan
2002:190). It is tempting to link this practice to the
complete saddle quern found placed upside down in
a Neolithic pit at Etton, Cambridgeshire and also at
Milsoms Corner, Somerset. That from Etton appeared
to have been packed in leaves and twigs, while that
from Milsoms Corner was laid upon a bed of carbonised material (Pryor 1998:22, Richard Tabor, pers.
comm.) It seems they were being stored safely underground, which raises the possibility that, like the stones
mentioned by Gimbutas, they were taken out for use
following the harvest. This use may have been at once
both practical and symbolic (Bradley 1987:351). The
decorated metates from Central America mentioned
above are thought to have performed similar conjoined
symbolic and practical functions.
Symbols of life, death and rebirth
During the milling process, however, raw, unusable and
inedible materials are ground into usable and edible
products. This is a particularly important symbolic
process in relation to grain, which is itself a powerful
symbol of life, death and resurrection (John 12.24). As
the grain is ground so it is effectively killed. This is wellillustrated in the language of the Hopi, for whom the life
cycle of the maize plant is metaphorically linked to that
of humans. The word tuqyakni means “others killed”
and derived from tuu-+qöya (the plural form of to kill)
and –kna (pounded maize kernels) (Black 1984:282).
The killing of the grain is the subject of “John
Barleycorn”, an English folksong thought to be the
survival of a myth relating to the slaying of a corn god
(Vaughan Williams & Lloyd 1959:56–57, 116). John
Barleycorn is buried in the ground and presumed dead
but he rises up green and living. However, he is cut
down in the prime of life. In the tortuous treatment he
subsequently receives, the miller, we are told, plays his
part by grinding John Barleycorn between two stones.
The story of John Barleycorn echoes the fate of Mot,
an ancient Canaanite god of natural adversity, drought
and death. Mot traps Baal, a god of rain and vegetation,
in the underworld and kills him. Anat, sister of Baal,
and goddess of fertility and war, travels to the underworld to avenge his death. She cleaves and winnows
Mot and burns him in a fire before grinding him in
a mill and scattering him over the fields. Her actions
revive Baal and in due course Mot is also restored to life
60
(Jordan 2002:167, Anon 2010). The bones of Tammuz,
a Sumerian fertility god are similarly ground in a mill
and scattered to the wind. The story of Tammuz comes
from a Nabataean text ca. 300 BC–AD 100 and may
derive from the cosmological conflict between Mot and
Baal. This latter myth is recorded on tablets dated ca.
1200 BC from Urgarit, an ancient port at Ras Šamra in
northern Syria (Santillana & Dechend 1969:91, Tolley
1994–1997:74) but again it is likely to be more ancient
in origin, potentially rooted in the Neolithic period
and the beginnings of agriculture in the Near East. As
Graves (1959:v, viii) comments, myths were not only a
way through which people sought to understand the
natural world around them but also, in a fantastical
way, explained and justified earthly events, including
migrations and the introduction of new or foreign
ideas. Thus the story of Mot represents the natural
annual cycle of rain and drought and the growth and
death of vegetation in the region onto which the agricultural cycle of sowing, growing and harvesting is
superimposed (Anon 2010).
Through its death in the mill, however, grain is
transformed from an indigestible material into a
potentially life-giving product. The act of milling can
be seen, therefore, as both destructive and creative
(Stone 2010). As such it echoes the natural order, the
constant and rhythmic change between creation and
destruction, birth and death, which it is suggested
underlay the belief system of the European Neolithic
(Gimbutas 1987:12). This is witnessed not just in the
natural world but in the agricultural year and also in
human lives. The quern/millstone, a familiar everyday
object, is an ideal medium, therefore, through which
changes in the human state can be explained (Brück
2001:155). The transformation through grinding
from raw material to refined product, from one
state to another, provides the perfect metaphor not
only for the transition from girl to woman but also
from life to death and from death to rebirth. It is
perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the act of
milling is also a key part in some creation myths. In
Mexican mythology, the bones of previous incarnations of mankind procured by Quetzalcoatl from the
underworld are ground by the goddess CihuacoatlQuilaztli. The ground bone is mixed with the blood of
the gods and from the mixture the current generation
of humanity is made (Santillana & Dechend 1969:93,
Jordan 2002:53, 212). In Norse mythology the flesh
of primeval giants is ground into mould, that is the
fertile soil in which vegetation grows and into the
sand on the sea shore (Rydberg 1887:79–80).
AmS-Skrifter 24 The symbolism of querns and millstones
Symbols of prosperity and
adversity
The transformation metaphor becomes particularly
potent when considered in the light of the invisible
grinding process that takes place between the two
stones of a rotary quern or millstones. When the rotary
quern was first introduced in the Iron Age this would
have been, as Heslop says a “startling magical innovation” after the very visible crushing of the grain on a
saddle quern (Heslop 2008:18). The novelty would have
worn off as the rotary quern became a more familiar,
everyday tool but the idea of an invisible, magical transformation may have lingered in metaphorical form. It
is this unseen transformation that may lie at the root
of tales of magical mills that grind either prosperity or
adversity.
The Grottasöngr, recorded in the Prose Edda
compiled by the 12th/13th century Icelandic historian
Snorri Sturluson and also in the Poetic Edda, a collection of 13th century Norse poems, tells of a large quern
called Grotti that belonged to King Frodi. Grotti was
turned by two giant-maidens, Fenia and Menia, who
ground wealth and happiness for Frodi. In his greed
Frodi allowed Fenia and Menia little rest and in revenge
they ground an army to attack him. In the Poetic Edda
they continue to grind on furiously until their frenzied
grinding pulls the frame on which the quern sits to
pieces and the stones are broken. In the Prose Edda,
however, the leader of the attacking army is a sea-king
called Mysing who takes Fenia and Menia on board his
ship and bids them grind salt, which they did until the
ship sank and they are grinding still, which explains
why the sea is salt. According to Orcadian tradition
the quern lies in the Pentland Firth (Johnston 1910,
Magnússon 1910, Mackenzie 1912:246–249, Tolley
1994–1997:67–68).
Later folk tales of Scandinavian and Germanic origin
pick up on the theme of a magic quern that will grind
anything that is asked of it and, likewise, end with
the quern grinding salt at the bottom of the sea (for
example Mackenzie 1912:249–253). The Finnish tale,
The Kalevala, also features a magical device called the
Sampo which is thought by some authors to be a mill.
The word Sampo, however, appears to have originally
signified a pillar and to relate to the world pillar around
which the heavens turn and the seasons are regulated
(Tolley 1994–1997:65–67). The Sampo had three sides
that produced corn, salt and coins respectively. It too
was eventually destroyed and the pieces of it were
dispersed, some to the sea whence come the riches of
61
the sea, some to the land of Vainomoinen to increase
the soils fertility but the far north only got a small piece
hence why it is such an unproductive region (Tolley
1994–1997:63–67, Stone 2010).
In these tales the quern provides its wares magically, requiring no input. The quern may be a symbol,
therefore, of the earth and the riches it provides (Stone
2010). However, these tales also contain a warning. If
the quern/earth is misused or mistreated it will grind/
produce harm and ruin instead.
The mystic mill
The unseen transformation from grain to flour is
also manifest in medieval Christian allegory, grain
and bread being a source of spiritual as well as bodily
nutrition. In the mystic or Eucharistic mill the laws of
the Old Testament prophets (grain) are transformed,
through Christ (the millstones) into the teachings of
the New Testament (flour/communion wafers). Images
of the mill from the 14th and 15th centuries typically
show a geared mill turned by a double cranked handle.
Grain is poured into the mill by the four evangelists
and the mill is turned by the apostles. Waiting to
receive the ground product are Fathers of the Latin
church, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory the Great and
Jerome (Moffet 2003:215, Roberts 2005, Worthen
2006:269–270).
Rather different, however, is the mystic mill depicted
on one of the capitals in the nave of the church at
Vézelay Abbey, Burgundy, France. The 12th century
carving shows two figures, one either side of the mill.
The figure on the left pouring the grain into the mill is
thought to be Moses while that on the right, collecting
the ground meal in a sack, is probably St. Paul (Moffet
2003:215, Ambrose 2006). The 16th century reformation of the church also found expression in contemporary allegorical drawings of mills such as Johann
Fischart’s Die Grille Krotestisch Mül zur Römischen
Frucht (1577) in which priests are ground into strange
creatures (Gleisberg 1975:146–147, Fig. 35).
Illustrations and stories of mills that transform are
found in secular as well as religious life. The ballad
“The Miller’s Maid Grinding Old Men Young Again”,
for example, begins “Come old, decrepid, lame, or
blind,/Into my mill to take a grind”. The mill, depicted
on a woodcut of ca. 1720, shows a procession of elderly
men climbing happily into the mill which is turned by
a young woman. Other young women wait beside the
mill to claim each rejuvenated man as he emerges from
Susan Watts
refer to being on a treadmill today when work or life
seems relentless or monotonous. The treadmill as a
form of punishment also brings to mind the story of
Samson who, when captured by the Philistines, was
forced to grind in the prison house (Judges 16.21). In
Samson’s case, however, he would have been grinding
grain into flour on a saddle quern. This would have been
considered a degrading task in a world where milling
was an occupation fit only for women and slaves.
The cosmic mill
Fig. 4. The circular motion of the upper stone of a rotary quern
or millstone can be likened to the turning of the heavens, the
stationary lower stone signifying the earth. Photo: Susan Watts.
the mill (Jewitt 1869–1870:86–87). In The Woman Mills
of Tripstrill, however, a musical for Shrove Tuesday
written by G.A. Bredelin ca. 1787, it is old women who
are ground young again. Following the exhortations
of the miller, five men bring their elderly wives to the
altweibermühle for rejuvenation. Unfortunately, for the
men, their new, young wives want nothing more to do
with them. Stolprian, the clown, seeing this result then
brings his wife, who he wishes to be rid of, to the mill
but the tables are turned when she refuses to leave him
(Gleisberg 1975:148–149, Wikipedia 2012).
A ditty in the Royal Cornwall Gazette, dated 30
August 1823, makes reference to the altweibermühle:
“The gossips of yore of a Miller made mention,/Who
ground the OLD young, and their beauty renew’d./
But how vastly superior the modern invention,/Of a
Mill where the NAUGHTY FOLKS grind themselves
GOOD!”. The mill that ground “the naughty folks
good” was not a corn mill but a treadmill or a treadwheel developed by engineer Sir William Cubitt in
1817 as a means of reforming prisoners. The treadmill
referred to in this instance is probably the one installed
in Bodmin gaol in Cornwall. Long, gruelling hours
would have been spent by prisoners on the mill, which
was often geared to a water pump or millstones. It was
thus considered to be a beneficial and productive form
of hard labour at a time when idleness, particularly in
prisoners, was thought to be a sin (Shayt 1989). We still
62
The saddle quern was the sole means of grinding grain
for many thousands of years. The advent of the rotary
quern in the Iron Age, therefore, was a remarkable
innovation in milling technology. Current evidence
suggests that it originated in Catalonia, the serendipitous concurrence of an increase in grain production in the region, the use of the potter’s wheel and an
increasing use of iron tools providing the inspiration
and means necessary for the development of a new
and more efficient milling device (Alonso 1997:15–19,
2002:111, 122, Aquilué et al. 2000, Watts 2012). The
transference of the forward and backwards motive
operation of the saddle quern to the circular motion
of the rotary quern subsequently enabled adaptation
to animal, water and wind power. It also enabled the
development of new mythologies and meanings based
on rotary motion (Fig. 4). As shown below, the turning
of the upper stone came variously to symbolise the
turning of the heavens with its revolving constellations
or the turning of the earth or the passage of time itself.
Although Santillana & Dechend (1969) and also Kelly
(2002) attempt to push the origins of the cosmic mill
back to the Bronze Age or earlier it cannot predate
the origin of the rotary quern. The earliest reference
to the cosmic mill appears to be a comment made
by the character Trimalchio in the Satyricon written
by Petronius, a courtier of the Emperor Nero, in the
first century AD. Following a description of the
zodiac, Trimalchio declares “so the world turns like a
mill[stone], and always brings some evil to pass, causing
the birth of men or their death” (Petronius Satyricon
39). According to Norse mythology, the cosmos was
turned by Mundilfoeri, the one who turns the mill and
through whom the timing of the seasons was ordered
and the 9th century Arab astronomer, al-Farghani likewise described the revolving of the sky around the Pole
Star as “like the turning of a mill” (Rydberg 1887:81,
Worthen 2006:260, Stone 2010). In Aelfric’s Homilies,
AmS-Skrifter 24 The symbolism of querns and millstones
written in the 10th century, there is a reference to a
quernstone that turns continually but goes nowhere.
The quernstone symbolises the world which Aelfric
says “circulates in errors” (Thorpe 1844:515).
The mill is also used as a metaphor for life and the
passage of time in a little 19th century Sunday School
publication called The Old Miller and His Mill (Pearse
undated) in which the miller (time) indifferently grinds
out not grain but people both good and bad. This theme
is echoed in Longfellow’s poem, “Retribution”: “Though
the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding
small;/Though with patience he stands waiting, with
exactness grinds he all” (Jerrold 19--?:603). In other
words, whatever one takes to the mill (life) one will get
back in kind.
Millstones in heraldry
Finally, millstones also appear as charges on coats
of arms. Three millstones, for example, featured on
the original coat of arms of the Millington family of
Millington, Cheshire (Bennett & Elton 1899:233). The
coats of arms of number of European towns and cities
also include millstones in each case symbolising a
particular aspect of that place. They may represent, for
example, the name such as Porto de Mos, Portugal or
an actual mill with which the town is associated, such
as at Beinhorn, Germany or, in the case of Hyllestad,
Norway, the millstone trade (Heraldry of the World
2012). Oslo, however, does not have a coat of arms but
a town seal which dates to at least the 15th century.
The main figure on the seal is St. Hallvard who, as
mentioned above, was killed protecting a woman and
whose murderers attempted to dispose of his body by
tying it to a millstone and throwing it into the fjord
(Heraldry of the World 2012). St. Hallvard is depicted
on the seal with the dead woman at his feet, the arrows
with which he was killed in his left hand and in his
right hand, a millstone.
brief exploration shows, querns and millstones can be
representative of:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
gender and womanhood
harvest and plenty
desolation and famine
life and/or death
transformation
the world/the heavens
people and places
These esoteric meanings are drawn from all facets of
the materiality and functionality of querns and millstones. These include not only what they were used
for and who used them but also the physical action
of grinding and the transformative process from raw
material to refined product that takes place between
the two stones, as well as their size, weight or colour.
Such a wide variety of symbolic and metaphoric aspects
originate, of course, in different times and places and
will have developed in response to specific cultural
situations. We can only theorise regarding the meaning
of querns in the prehistoric period but nevertheless it
is likely that some later symbology will have derived
from earlier traditions even though the connections
that link them are now broken (Green 1999). However,
similar symbologies may also have been created by
different societies facing similar concerns, over the
harvest for example, and asking similar questions.
What is apparent is that, through the use of common,
everyday objects such as querns and millstones, difficult concepts such as the progress of the seasons and
the reconciliation of the Old to the New Testament
were explained in easy to understand terms. In turn,
such symbolism highlights the importance of querns
and millstones to communities for milling grain. As
Worthen says, paraphrasing Freud, “sometimes a mill
[or quernstone] is just a mill [or quernstone] but oftentimes it is a great deal more” (Worthen 2006:278).
Acknowledgements
Conclusions
As tools for grinding grain, querns and millstones are of
prime importance to subsistence-based communities.
As such indispensible and consequently familiar tools
it is perhaps not surprising that throughout the 12,000
years or so of their history they should have acquired
symbolic and metaphoric functions in conjunction
with their practical, everyday milling function. As this
63
I would like to take this opportunity to thank John
Cruse for alerting me to the sleeping fox querns from
London, Dr. Richard Tabor for details of the Neolithic
pits at Milsoms Corner, Somerset, Dr. Caroline Hamon
for sharing details of her research in Mali with me,
Professor David Peacock for allowing me a preview of
his book, The Stone of Life and Jocelyn Rendall and Guy
Clausse for Fig. 1 and 3 respectively.
Susan Watts
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