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Snake Stones and Bezoars: Christian

Tertullian writes that the wearing of stones taken from the head of a dragon or of a serpent was especially reprehensible in the case of a Christian; for how could a Christian be said to "bruise the head" of the Old Serpent (Gen. iii, 15) while wearing such a stone about his neck or on his head, and thus testifying to a kind of serpent worship?

The Greek poem "Lithica," belonging to the fourth century B.C., also celebrates the virtues of a "snake-stone," which is to be pressed closely on the bitten spot; but besides this application, the drinking of undiluted wine in which the stone ostrites had been pulverized, is recommended. This shows that the therapeutic value of alcohol as a stimulant to revive the nerve-centres, paralyzed by the animal poison, was recognized at this time. An unusually precise description is given of the ostrites; it was round, hard, black and rough, and was marked by many wavy lines or veins. Some one of the many varieties of banded agate seems to answer best to this description. The legend that St. Patrick drove out all snakes from Ireland sometimes took the form that the saint had transformed them into stones. This belief is noted by Andrew Borde, physician and ecclesiastic, who, writing in 1542, mentions some strange stone he had been shown on that island: I have sene stones the whiche have had the forme and shape of a snake and other venimous wormes. And the people of the countrie sayth that such stones were wormes, and they were turned into stones by the power of God and the prayers of saynt Patrick. And English merchauntes of England do fetch of the earth of Irlonde to caste in their garden's, to keepe out and to kyll venimous wormes.

The legendary serpent-stone is usually one taken from the reptile's head, but Welsh tradition tells of one extracted from the tail of a serpent by the hero Peredur, and having the magic property that anyone holding it in one hand would grasp a handful of gold in the other. This stone was generously bestowed upon Etlym by the finder, who only secured it after vanquishing the serpent in a dangerous conflict.

The snake-stone (or "mad-stone"), in Arabic hajar alhayyat, is described by the Arab writer Kazwini, as being of the size of a small nut. It was found in the heads of certain snakes. To cure the bite of a venomous creature the injured part was to be immersed in sour milk, or in hot water, and when the stone was thrown into the liquid it would immediately attract itself to the bitten part and draw out the poison. The homeopathic idea plays a considerable role in the superstitions of the Arabs of northern Africa. To cure the bite or sting of the scorpion, the creature is to be crushed over the wound it has inflicted. If anyone is bitten by a dog, he should cut off some of the animal's hair and lay this on the bitten part; if, however, the dog was mad, it must be killed, its body opened and the heart removed. This is then to be broiled and eaten by the person who has been bitten. Many beautiful glass beads of Roman, or perhaps of British fabrication, have been found in Great Britain and Ireland. Upon some of these are bosses composed of white spirals, the body of the bead being blue, red, yellow, or some other brilliant color. These have been called "holy snake beads." Probably most of them are merely ornamental productions and were not intended to represent serpentstones. The curious test of the genuineness of an ovum anguinum mentioned by Pliny, namely, that even if set in gold, it would float up a stream against the current, indicates a very porous structure; perhaps some of these serpent's eggs were hollow, vitrified clay balls with wavy lines on the surface.

De Boot, in his treatise on stones and gems, figures the ovum anguinum, and says that its form was either hemispherical or lenticular. In his opinion the name "serpent's egg" was given to the stone because on its surface there appeared five ridges, starting from the base and tapering off toward the top. These bore a certain resemblance to a serpent's or adder's tail. The stone was believed to protect the wearer from pestilential vapors and from poisons. The so-called "snake-stones," many specimens of which have been found in British barrows, bear in the Scottish Lowlands the designation "Adder Stanes." They are also sometimes called adder-beads or serpent-stones. For the Welsh they were gleini na droedh and for the Irish glaine nan druidhe, the meaning being the same, "Druid's glass." Many interesting examples were added to the collection of the Museum of Scotch Antiquaries, one of these being of red glass, spotted with white; another of blue glass, streaked with yellow; other types were of pale green and blue glass, some of these being ribbed while others again were of smooth and plain surface. That the glass "snake-stones" were objects of considerable care and attention is indicated by the mending of a broken specimen shown by Lord Landes-borough at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in 1850. This broken bead had been repaired and strengthened by the application of a bronze hoop.

The supposed snake-stones are also to be found among the Cornishmen, who sometimes call these objects milprey or "thousand worms," and they even lay claim to the power of forcing a snake to fabricate the "stone" by thrusting a hazel-wand into the spirals of a sleeping reptile. In another version it is not a bead that is formed but a ring which grows around a hazel-wand when a snake breathes on it. If water in which this ring has been dipped be given to a human being or an animal that has been bitten by a venomous creature, all ill-effects of the bite will be warded off, the water acting as a powerful antidote to the poison.