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Fabulous Stones, Concretions and Fossils: Europe
In many different countries, especially in the north of Europe, these flint arrow-heads and the fossil remains of similar form, were called fairy-darts or elf-shots, and were believed to be the enchanted weapons of the elves and fairies, who, in the old folklore, are represented as beings of a very different quality from the fairies and elves of the tales of our childhood. In some parts of Europe at the present day, for example in Ireland, the peasantry talk with bated breath of the doings of the "good people," for they shrink from using the word "fairy" lest it might offend these mysterious and generally malevolent beings. The designation "good people" is therefore used to placate and flatter them.
Various shell fossils were also used as talismans. Here the form generally determined the virtues they were supposed to possess. Some of these strange forms lent them-selves to an interpretation in line with the primitive adoration of the life-giving forces of nature, and suggested the use of such fossils to cure certain special diseases. Other of these petrifactions retaining the form of the enclosing shell, especially those of circular shape, and with concentric rings, were believed to be of meteoric origin and to have fallen during thunder or rain; hence the names of brontia and ombria. A certain class of these fossils, with convolutions on the surface resembling the form of a snake, were called snake-eggs (ova anguina), and, very naturally, enjoyed the repute of preserving the wearer from poisons. All these varieties will be described in this and the following chapters. While some believed that the toad-stone was vomited by the animal, others held that it constituted a part of the toad's head. That this was the popular belief in Shakespeare's time is shown by the well-known lines in his "As You Like It" (Act II, sc. 1):
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
De Boot, whose treatise was published about the time that Shakespeare wrote these lines, gives the following account of the result of his efforts to obtain a toad-stone according to the prescribed method: I remember that, when a boy, I took an old toad and set it upon a red cloth that I might secure a toadstone; for they say that it will not give up its stone unless it sits upon a red cloth. However, although I watched the toad for a whole night, it did not eject anything, and from this time I became convinced all the tales concerning this stone were merely fond imaginings. A stone called simply the "Indian Stone," and said to be light and porous, is noted by pseudo-Aristotle, and to it is attributed the power to relieve those suffering from dropsy, by drawing the water to itself. If weighed after having been applied to the patient, the stone was found to have increased in weight in proportion to the amount of water absorbed, and when it was placed in the sun, water of a yellowish hue exuded, until, finally, the stone resumed its original appearance and weight. Another and perhaps earlier authority gives the name "toad-stone" to this material.
The toad-stone was not only an antidote for poisons, but was also thought to give warning of their presence by becoming very hot. To fully profit by this strange quality, the wearer of such a stone was advised to have it so set in a ring that it would touch the skin; in this way he would be sure to have timely notice, if any poisoned food or drink were offered to him. The writer who mentions this adds the following tale of the discovery of a toad-stone: A clerk once found a toad which had a round knob on its head, wherefore he thought that there must be a toad-stone. So he took up the toad and tied it firmly in the sleeve of his coat. When he returned from the fields and searched for the toad he found it not, although the sleeve of his coat was tightly bound below and he could not discover any opening through which the creature could have passed. This shows us that it is a great help to prisoners in jail.
Another early authority, Thomas de Cantimpre, says of the toad-stone: If one take the stone from a living and still quivering toad a little eye can be seen in the substance; but if it be taken from a toad that has been some time dead, the poison of the creature will have already destroyed this little eye and spoiled the stone.
If the toad-stone be swallowed at meal-time it passes through the system and carries off all impurities. Here the substance may have been one of many concretionary materials,--bauxite, impure pearls, concretionary limestone, stalagmite, or even the eye-stones from the crawfish; indeed, any material, white or gray, that had a semblance to a toad color, and was then sold by the vendor of charm stones as coming from a toad's head. The great Erasmus (1465-1536) made a pilgrimage to the famous shrine of the Virgin in the church at Walsingham, in Kent. In his description of what he saw there he expressly notes a wonderful toad-stone:
At the feet of the Virgin is a gem for which there is as yet no Latin or Greek name. The French have named it after the toad [crapaudine], because it represents so perfectly the figure of a toad that no art could do this so well. The miracle is all the greater that the stone is so small, and that the exterior surface has not the form of a toad, the image showing through it as though inclosed within.
As we see, the stone of Erasmus contained the form or image of a toad. This was not usually the case with the concretions that bore this name, and it appears probable that the "crapaudine" of the shrine at Walsingham owed its peculiarity rather to art than to nature. A rather farfetched explanation of the origin of these substances is given by Ambrosianus, who relates that, in order to investigate the quality and character of toad-stones, he killed a number of toads and took out their brains. Although these were not hard when extracted, they became, in time, as hard as stones.