HERE
can be little doubt that much of the modern superstition regarding the
supposed unlucky quality of the opal owes its origin to a carele'ss
reading of Sir Walter Scott's novel, "Anne of Geierstein."3 The
wonderful tale therein related of the Lady Hermione, a sort of
enchanted princess, who came no one knew whence and always wore a
dazzling opal in her hair, eon-tains nothing to indicate that Scott
really meant to represent the opal as unlucky. Lady Hermione's gem was
an enchanted stone just as its owner was a product of
"The opal is said to preserve its wearer from disease; and hence, in the East, is much used in the form of amulets.
2 From " Gems of Beauty," by the Countess of Blessington, London, 1836.
* SirJWalter__gœttf " KOvels,'^_Thg__Jan.son Society, New York, 1907, vol. xxiii, pp. 126-138.
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