ox STOXE FOLK-LORE. 209 



Stones, tliey are cemeiitecl. But this sheds no hght on the 

 gi'eat variety of shapes they assume, a variety whicli really 

 underlies the ascription to them of supernatural origin — fairy 

 art products ! They occur as spheres, spheroids, oblate and 

 prolate spheroids, flattened spheres with circular rings, 

 flattened spheres with flattened rings, laminaa or plates, 

 circular plates formed by concentric rings, shapes suggestive 

 of the human figure, or of conventional impossible animals. 

 Spechnens of these and of many more are represented in my 

 own collection. But what of their formation? It seems to 

 me that the presence in plaster clay of such substances as 

 silica, carbonate of lime, carbonate of magnesia, or iron, or 

 manganese protoxides which have strong tendencies to 

 aggregation — to coalescence, like coming to like — the shape 

 of the position in which they have room to associate will 

 determine that of the concretions themselves, and accoi^nt 

 for their fantastic forms. It would be easy enough for the 

 credulous, who credited art experts among the fairies with 

 power to make glass slippers which would fit only one human 

 being in all the world, and gauzy dresses gleaming with gold 

 or silver threads for favourite maidens, to credit " prentice 

 hands" among them with the manufacture of these odd- 

 shaped forms of worthless clay I 



7. Amulet-Stones were stones arbitrarily held to possess 

 medicinal virtues, and were worn about the person as a cure 

 for, or a safeguard against, disease originating either in known 

 or, specially, unknown causes. Pliny uses the word amulet 

 in this sense, — infantibus adalligari amuleti ratione prodest. 

 Thus loo as to the medicinal virtue of amber, the famous 

 chrysolectron of the ancients and still worn as an amulet, — 

 Hoc collo adalligatum, mederi febribus et ynorbis ; triticum 

 cum melle et rosaceo, aurium vitiis: et si cum melle Attico 

 conteratur oculorum qitoque obscuratibus (^Hist. Nat. C. XXXVII. 

 c. 12). The process of association by which imaginary 

 virtues are ascribed to certain shapes and certain colours of 

 stone, waits for explanation. A bit of limestone found on 

 the sea shore pierced hjPholas or Scuxicava — boring mollusca — 

 is often met with in country districts hung up in stables or 

 bjrres as a charm. Why ? A ring stone of amethyst is held 

 to beguile the wearer from temptations to drunkenness. 

 Why ? One of green jasper is behoved to ward off" the dis- 

 comforts of indigestion. Why? The range of the stone 

 charm-myth is worldwide. Instances are named in most 

 books of travel, and the superstition is not confined to savage^- 



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