"bullroarer" [thunderstick, whizzer] (Fr.: rhombe, planchette ronflante; Ger.: Schwirrholz). A wooden blade with a hole through which a cord is tied, swung round the player's head so that the blade spins with a sound like that of a roaring bull or thunder. Used worldwide from earliest times as a ritual instrument, often representing an ancestral or spirit voice, it has been adopted latterly in many areas as a noise-maker to protect crops and has now become a child's plaything, so embodying the classic cycle of ritual, tool, and toy.
Jeremy Montagu
How to cite this entry:
Jeremy Montagu "bullroarer" The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford University Press, 2002. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 21 October 2011
