Stones of Nocturnal Luminosity 59 



It is welded from two elements, — a reflex of the ring of Polycrates 1 

 rediscovered in the stomach of a fish, and the tradition underlying the 

 Plinian explanation of the lychnis. It is accordingly the lychnis which, 

 through exaggeration of a tradition inspired by the name, gave rise to 

 a fable of stones luminous at night. 1 



A story of Aelian 5 merits particular attention : Herakleis, a virtuous 

 widow of Tarent, nursed a young stork that had broken its leg. The 

 grateful bird, a year after its release, dropped a stone into the woman's 

 lap. Awakening at night, she noticed that the stone spread light and 

 lustre, illuminating the room as though a torch had been brought in. 

 The author adds that it was a very precious stone, without further 

 determination. 4 This story meets with a parallel in a curious anecdote 

 of China, told in the Shi i ki, that, when Prince Chao of Yen was once 

 seated on a terrace, black birds with white heads flocked there together, 

 holding in their beaks perfectly resplendent pearls (tung kuang chu 

 (>^)^l.*$0> measuring one foot all round. These pearls were black as 

 lacquer, and emitted light in the interior of a house to such a degree 

 that even the spirits could not obscure their supernatural essence.' 

 Still more striking in its resemblance to Aelian's story is one in the 

 Sou shin ki: 6 "The marquis of Sui once encountered a wounded snake, 

 and had it cured by means of drugs. After the lapse of a year [as in 

 Aelian] the snake appeared with a luminous gem in its mouth to repay 

 his kindness. This gem was an inch in diameter, perfectly white, and 

 emitted at night a light of the brightness of the moon, so that the room 

 was lighted as by a torch." The gem was styled "gem of the marquis of 



p. 84), this incident is not contained; it is contained in the uncritical edition of 

 C. Muller of 1846. If Ausfeld (p. 242) is right in placing the primeval text of 

 Pseudo-Callisthenes in the second century B.C., the episode in question, which 

 indubitably is a later interpolation, is not older than the second or third cen- 

 tury A.D. 



1 Herodotus, hi, 41-42. — The stone in this signet-ring, according to Herodotus, 

 was a smaragdos; according to Pliny (xxxvii, 1), a sardonyx (compare Krause, 

 Pyrgoteles, p. 135). 



1 As a fabulous stone found in the river Hydaspes, the lychnis is mentioned in the 

 unauthentic treatise De fluviis, wrongly ascribed to Plutarch (F. de Mely, Lapidaires 

 grecs, p. 29). 



* Hist, animalium, vm, 22. 



4 A. Marx, in his interesting study Griechische Marchen von dankbaren Tieren 

 (p. 52, Stuttgart, 1889), justly comments that the stone mentioned in this tale is the 

 lychnites or lychnis, because, according to Philostratus (Apollonius from Tyana, 

 11, 14), this was the stone placed by the storks in their nests in order to guard them 

 from snakes, and because the lychnis spreads such marvellous light in the dark and 

 possesses many magical virtues (Orphica, 271). 



* P'ei win yiinfu, Ch. 7A, p. 107. 



* "Tit shu tsi ch'ing, chapter on pearls, ki shi, I, p. 1 b. 



