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Superstitions: Snake-stone
To the Snake-stone a popular superstition is still attached in the East. In the narrative of a voyage in H.M.S. "Samarang," Captain Sir Edward Belcher says:--"At my last interview with the Sultan (of Guning Taboor), at which he would only permit Tuan Hadji and our interpreter to be present, he conveyed into my hand (suddenly closing it with great mystery) what they term here the Snake-stone. This is a polished globe of quartz, about the size of a musketball, which he described as of infinite value, an heirloom, and reported to have been extracted from the head of an enchanted snake. At first I suspected it to be a bezoar stone, but on inspection found it to be merely quartz, the grinding and polishing of which in a globular form must have required some art."
Allusions to serpents' stones are frequent by the early writers; in the "Gesta Romanorum" (chapter cv.), we read that the Emperor Theodosius the Blind ordained that the cause of any injured person should be heard on ringing a bell, placed in a public part of his palace. A serpent had a nest near the spot where the bell-rope hung. In the absence of the serpent a toad took possession of her nest; the serpent, twisting itself round the rope, rung the bell for justice, and by the emperor's special command the toad was killed. A few days afterwards, as the emperor was reposing on his couch, the serpent entered the chamber bearing a precious stone in its mouth, and crawling up to the emperor's face laid it on his eyes, and glided out of the apartment; the monarch was immediately restored to sight.
The Toad-stone was supposed to possess virtues which found firm believers in many ages. Philosophers taught that "the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head."
Leonardus Camillus mentions this stone as being found in the brain of a newly-killed toad. There were, it was pretended, two kinds of these miraculous stones, of which the white was the best. Tennant, writing of the Roman fables respecting the toad-stone, says it was a principal ingredient in the incantations of nocturnal hags:-- "Toad that under the cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one, Sweltered venom, sleeping got, Boil thou first i' the charmed pot." Lupton, in his "Book of Notable Things," instructs his readers how to procure the toad-stone: "You shall knowe whether the tode stone be the ryghte or perfect stone or not. Holde the stone before a tode so that he may see it, and if it be a ryght and true stone, the tode will leape towarde it, and make as though he would snatch it. He envieth so much that none should have that stone."
If swallowed, it was a certain antidote against poison, probably on the homoeopathic principle, and it was usual to take it as a precautionary pill (rather a hard one) before eating. Erasmus, in his "Perigrinatio Religionis ergo," describes a famous toad-stone set at the feet of "Our Lady of Walsingham," as a gem "to which no name has been given by the Greeks and Romans, but the French have named it after the toad, inasmuch as it represents the figure so exactly that no art of man could do as well. And the wonder is so much the greater that the stone is very small. The figure of the toad does not project from the surface, but shines through, as if enclosed in the stone itself. And some--no mean authorities--add, that if the stone be put into vinegar the toad will swim therein and move its legs." This account would almost induce the belief that the stone in question was a lump of amber, enclosing some large insect. It is painful to think of the number of toads which must have been sacrificed in by-gone days, in hopes of finding the mysterious precious stone it was supposed to possess by treasure-seekers, "midnight hags," and others.
In the "Philosophical Transactions" (vol. vi. p. 21), we find that the toad-stone was supposed, in the Highlands, to prevent the burning of houses, and the sinking of boats, and if a commander in the field had one about him, he would either be sure to win the day, or all his men would die on the spot. The Bezoar, Bezuar, or Beza, was a stone procured from the kidneys of the Cervicabra, a wild animal of Arabia, partaking of the nature of the deer and the goat, somewhat larger than the latter. This stone was supposed to have been formed of the poison of serpents, which had bitten her produce, combined with the counteracting matter with which nature had furnished it. It was a strong belief in the Middle Ages that the bezoar was a potent charm against the plague and poison, hence the origin of the name from the Persian Pad-zahr, expelling poison, or Bad-zahr, the same meaning. Concretions of various kinds are found in the stomachs of herbivorous quadrupeds, very generally having for their nucleus some small indigestible substance which has been taken into the stomach. The value of the bezoar being supposed to increase with its size, the larger ones have been sold for superstitious purposes, particularly in India, for very great prices.
In the inventory of the jewels of the Emperor Charles V., made at Yuste after his death, is the entry of "a box of black leather lined with crimson velvet, containing four bezoar stones, variously set in gold, one of which the Emperor directed to be given to William Van Male, his gentleman of the chamber, being sick (as it was suspected) of the plague." In the same inventory is mentioned "a blue stone with two clasps of gold, good for the gout." In the warrant of indemnity for the delivery of jewels to King James I., sent into Spain to the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Buckingham (1623), mention is made of "one great Bezar stone, sett in gould which was Queene Elizabethes," and "one other large Bezar stone, broken in peeces, delivered to our owne handes, by the Lord Brooke."
In the possession of Miss Levett is a silver box (of early sixteenth century work) in the form of an egg, of exquisitely pierced work, representing birds and scrolls, lined throughout with silver, and opening in the middle. This was intended to hold the "bezoar" stone.