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Ovum Anguinum, Druid's Bead

Ovum Anguinum, Druid's Bead Page of 384 Ovum Anguinum, Druid's Bead Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
252                   NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
the Emperor Claudius for no other cause than the carrying of one in his bosom during a trial. This embracing together of the serpents, and their thus productive union, seems to be the cause why foreign nations have made the Caduceus entwined with snakes, one of the emblems of peace ; for it is not the custom to represent the snakes on the Caduceus as having crests " (i. e. not as the serpents called by the Romans " draconos," the sacred reptiles above all others, the Egyptian Agathodajmons).
These details show how much in the wrong antiquaries are in giving the name of Ovum Anguinum, or Druid's Bead, to the large spheres of variegated glass (often exhi­biting the most vivid colours, arranged in elegant wavy patterns equal to any traditionally reproduced by the Murano factories) that formed the central ornament of Roman-British or Saxon necklaces. But the object seen his Pliny was evidently some natural production, and his description applies better to a large fossil echinus than to anything else. Perhaps some lingering traces of the ancient fable may be the cause why a species of the recent shell yet bears the popular name of the Mermaid's Egg. This explanation too is corroborated by Mediœval tradition ; for De Boot actually figures two fossil echini as specimens of what in his day was accounted the true Ovum Anguinum, and prized as an antidote against poison ; but he sagaciously adds that they do not agree with Pliny's description. The longitudinal septa of the shell were construed into as many lizards attached to its surface, and are so depicted in his woodcut.
Singularly enough he notices that the travelling quacks were in the habit of selling to the simple Bohemians, as the veritable Serpent's Egg, and generated according to all the circumstances of the old Druidical legend, a thing hence called Buchanek, or the Breath-stone (lapis Spiritalis).
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