The Loathed Paddock. i o i 



and balls for kings' daughters. Medicinally, the paddock 

 had once a high value for cancer, and in Europe it is still 

 worn on the person as a charm against poisons and the 

 plague. On occasion, too, it was a potent beast. For if 

 it found a cock's egg and hatched it, the result was a 

 cockatrice, a fearsome thing, which of its own accord grew 

 a crown on its head and so became a basilisk, and could 

 kill by merely looking. A very notable worm indeed, and 

 mo.^t reverend, was " this crowned asp." Moreover, the 

 toad, 



" Though ugly, 

 Wears yet a precious jewel in its head." 



In that very fascinating work, " The Natural History of 

 Gems," 1 a chapter is devoted to those "stones of virtue," 

 which were supposed in olden times to have been produced 

 by, or found inside of, beasts, birds, fishes, and reptiles 

 such as the hyaena, which, placed under the tongue, con- 

 ferred the gift of prophecy, and the marvellous "lynx-stone ; " 

 the grass-green chloritis, found only in wagtails, and the 

 alectoria, a crystal formed inside cocks; the cinaedia, 

 developed in the head of the fish so called ; the draconite, 

 dreadfully lodged in snakes, and the famous " batrachite " 

 or " bufonite " the " toad-stone." This last was said to be 

 of three kinds, one yellow and green "like a frog," the 

 second black, the third red and black. This tradition being 

 handed down to mediaeval fancies resulted in the toad being 

 credited with "a jewel in its head," which was variously 

 called "borax," " nosa," and "crapodinus." 



" The unwieldy Toad 

 That crawls from his secure abode 

 Within the mossy garden wall 

 When evening dews began to fall, 



i By C. W. King, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 



