under her pillow as she sleeps, she will, if an adulteress, be dashed out of bed by its influence.
"
If e'er thou wish thy spouse's truth to prove, If pure she's kept her
from adulterous love, Within thy bed unseen this stone bestow,
Muttering a soothing spell in whispers low; Though wrapp'il in slumbers
sound, if pure and chaste, She'll seek to strain thee to her loving
breast : But if polluted by adultery found, Hurl'd from the couch she
tumbles on the ground."—Ver. 312.
Marbodus
adds another more mischievous (if possible) quality : that its powder
strewn secretly upon the embers will drive all the inmates out of a
house panic-struck, and give the operator an opportunity to rob it
unmolested.
"If
a sly thief slip through the palace door, And strew unseen hot embers
on the floor, Then powder'd loadstone on these embers spread, The
inmates flee, possess'd with sudden dread. Distraught with horrid fear
of death they fly, Whilst from the square the vapour mounts on high,
They fly : within the house no soul remains, And copious spoils repay
the robber's pains."—Ver. 305.*
Orpheus
(636) sings, moreover, at great length the mystic virtues of the
Haematites; not, however, the magnetic ore just noticed, but a soluble
oxide of iron, of a styptic quality, and an excellent medicine for the
eyes (Jaspis, p. 147.)
The
Loadstone was used in glass-making, being supposed "to attract to
itself the liquid of the glass in the same way as it does iron "
(xxxvi. 66). Probably it acted as a flux in promoting the union of the
silica with the soda. As the green and blue tinge of common glass is
due to the small
* The Hindoos attribute to this stone the power of maintaining eternal youth in the human body. Garcias mentions an aged king
of Zeilan who had all his dinner-service made thereof, in this belief,
as the lapidary, the maker of the dishes, had informed him
