46 THE MAGIC OP JEWELS AND CHARMS
gested
by some different form, the color also being in some cases a
determining factor. For the purpose of securing a better yield from
fruit-trees a stone having the approximate shape of the fruit or with
markings similar to those on fruit or tree is the one indicated by
nature as the appropriate talisman, as in the case of the cocoa-nut
palm, where a stone marked with black lines is the one chosen.
Sometimes two different talismanic stones are used in this practice,
a smaller one figuring the unripe fruit; when the tree begins to bear,
the small stone is buried at its foot, and as soon as the fruit begins
to mature, the small stone is removed and the larger one, representing
the ripe fruit, is buried in its place.75
The
Scotch of a century or more ago are said to have considered that an
isolated stone or boulder, firmly fixed in the earth, possessed powers
of a peculiar sort, and some such stones were used to cure bruises and
strains and reduce swellings.76 As it was also thought that
a blow from a stone of this type was especially hurtful, this would be
another case of homoeopathic treatment of which so many and various
examples are afforded by the superstitious use of stones and gems, as
well as of other objects to which certain advantageous qualities were
attributed.
Small
stone boulders have been made use of by ejected peasants in Fermanagh,
Ireland, in a magical incantation designed to draw down a curse upon a
merciless landlord. For this purpose the peasant would collect a number
of such stones, pile them up on his hearth as he would have piled turf
sods, and then put up a petition that all manner of bad luck and
misfortune might befall the landlord and his descendants to remote
generations. Hereupon he would gather up the stones again, and,
carrying them off, would
" Father Lambert, " Moeurs et Superstitions des Néo-Calêdoniens," Noumea, 1900, pp. 217, 218, 222, 292-304.
" See Scott's " Border Minstrelsy," vol. iv, Ft. It, p. 645.
