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The Talismanic Use of Special Stones: Talmud

The Talmud shows us that the Jewish Rabbis sometimes endeavored to enliven their exhaustive discussions of ritual and legal questions by telling "good stories" to each other. One of these may be given as illustrating at once the wild improbability of some of these recitals and the belief in the wonderful magic virtues of the diamond: (New edition of the Babylonian Talmud, ed. and trans. by Michael L. Rodkinson, vol.v (xiii), Baba Batra, New York, 1902.) R. Jehudah of Mesopatamia used to tell: Once while on board of a ship, I saw a diamond that was encircled by a snake, and a diver went to catch it. The snake then opened its mouth, threatening to swallow the ship. Then a raven came, bit off its head, and all water around turned into blood. Then another snake came, took the diamond, put it in the carcass, and it became alive; and again it opened its mouth, in order to swallow the ship. Another bird then came, bit off its head, took the diamond and threw it on the ship. We had with us salted birds, and we wanted to try whether the diamond would bring them to life, so we placed the gem on them, and they became animated and flew away with the gem.