162 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
stone
with her into the house, feeling by an infallible instinct that the
stork which had dropped it was the one she had cared for in the
previous year. During the night she woke up, and was astonished to see
that the room was lighted up as though by many torches, the radiance
proceeding from the stone bestowed by the stork as a proof of its
gratitude.30
In German, the stone called Donnerkeil (thunderbolt) has several synonyms; among these is Storchstein ('' stork-stone "). It is evident that the stone of Heracleis was identical with the precious and brilliant variety of cerauniae mentioned
by Pliny, "which drew to themselves the radiance of the stars." The
flashing and ruddy light of the ruby suggested an igneous origin, and
induced the belief that rubies were generated by a fire from heaven,—
in other words, by the lightning flash.31
The
analogy between the flame of a lamp or the glow of a burning coal and
the radiance of a ruby, suggested some of the names given to this
stone, or those resembling it in color, as, for instance, the Greek anthrax and the Latin carbunculus and lychnis. Probably
the fancy that such stones were luminous in the dark was nothing more
than the logical result of the quasi-identification of them with fire
in some of its manifestations. Still, it is a well-known fact that some
stones possess a high degree of phosphorescence. This circumstance must
have been observed by chance, and may have had something to do with the
legends of luminous stones, although this peculiarity is not
characteristic of the ruby.
According to Pliny, the lychnis, perhaps a spinel, was
*° Claudii iEIiani, " De animalium natura," lib. viii, cap. 22, ed. Gesner, Tiguri, 1568, pp. 182, 183.
31 Grimm, " Worterbuch," vol. ii, col. 1244.
