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12 A History of Sweden
They often indicate considerable artistic taste and
skill. What life, what joy, what action do the dancing
men with their trumpets show in the accompanying
figure! Their dance and music are in all probability
performed in honor of some god, perhaps the sun god.
The sun’s disk is often pictured in these inscriptions,
as for instance in the next picture, where it is found
in two places. The object of this worship of the sun
god was most likely to invoke the sun to shine and pro-
Rock Inscription at Lyckc in Kohusliln.
duce rich crops. The pictures of boats may also repre-
sent the sun as the sun god was believed to sail across
the heavens in a boat.
But should a drought prevail, the pictures of axes
are inscribed to solicit rain and thunder. The ax was
even in the stone age a symbol of thunder. Later its
emblem became the god Thor with his stone ax. Thus
these inscriptions had most likely a religious signifi-
cance, intended to secure favorable weather and rich
harvests. This interpretation seems the more likely
since .the inscriptions are in close proximity to the most
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