112 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
1635)80 we read that he saw in the School of Anatomy at Leyden a stone called "Fulminis Sagitta, or the dart of the thunderbolt, about the size of your little finger." This was either a belemnite81
or a stone arrow-head of somewhat similar form. It bore a Latin
inscription to the following effect: "Many believe that nursing
children can be cured of rupture if this stone be attached to their
thighs, or if they do not suffer from this complaint, they will be
preserved from it."
On
the ridge-beam of an Irish cottage at Portrush was found a neolithic
celt of the kind believed by the peasantry to be "thunderbolts." This
celt had been placed on the roof of the cottage to protect it from
being struck by lightning, a notion thoroughly in accord with the
theory of sympathetic magic. In Surrey, England, a like belief is held
as to the fossil belemnites, and nodules of iron pyrites such as have
been found in Cretaceous formations near Cragdon are also thought to
have fallen from the sky during a thunder-storm, and to possess
peculiar powers in reference to the lightning.82
In
Ireland the prehistoric stone arrow-head is believed to have been shot
at man or beast by the fairies. Should an old woman be so lucky as to
find one she will become highly honored in her village, and it
is used as a cure for diseases produced by the wiles of evil spirits.
To effect a cure, the saigead ("arrow") must be placed in water, which is then given to the sick person to drink.83 Cows which have been wounded by the "fairy-darts" are also made to drink of this
K Brereton,
" Travels in Holland, the United Provinces, England, Scotland and
Ireland, 1634-1635," Chetham Soc, London, 1844, p. 41.
"The fossilized horny process of an extinct cuttlefish.
" A. E.
Wright and E. Lovett, " Specimens of Modern Mascots and Ancient
Amulets of the British Isles," Folk Lore, vol. xbc, 1908, p. 298; PI.
VI, fig. 2.
" Mooney, " The Medical Mythology of Ireland," Am. Phil. Soc, vol. xxxiv, p. 143, 1887.
