184 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
with
a quantity of powdered valerian root, this material (or salt) being
reputed to have a favorable influence in the production of the stone.
However, the experimenters were doomed to disappointment, for the poor
spider was unable to live up to its reputation. Tired of waiting for
nothing, recourse was finally had to the drastic measure of dissection,
but no stone of any kind could be found. This convinced the observers
that all the talk about spiders' stones was mere foolishness or
deception. In a note in the Miscellanea Curiosa, under date of 1686,
the statement is made that such stones could indeed be found, but only
in the autumn season and in no other part of the year."
A
small golden amulet, having the form of a heart and set with various
stones, was strongly recommended to ward off the plague by Oswald
Croll, a writer of the early part of the seventeenth century. On the
upper side of the heart-amulet should be set a fair blue sapphire;
above, beneath, and at either side of this should be put a toad-stone,
or a "spider-stone," so as to give a cross effect. The "spider-stones"
were asserted to be powerful enemies of the plague. On the under side
of the heart a good-sized jacinth was to be set, the jacinth also being
credited with great virtue against plague or pestilence. The gold heart
was to be hollow within. To give a finishing touch to the efficacy of
the amulet it was necessary to take a living toad and keep the creature
suspended by its hind-legs until it died and dried up so that the body
could be reduced to a powder. This powder was then to be kneaded into a
sort of paste with a little very sharp vinegar and introduced into the
hollow interior of the gold heart.88
The "fretful porcupine" also contributed its stone to the
"
See text in Axel Garboe's " Kulturhistoriske Studier over AEdelstene,"
Kobenhavn og Kristiana, 1915, p. 56, note from Simon Paulli, "Quadri-'
partitum botanicum," Argentorati, 1667, p. 163.
*· Oswaldus Crollius, " Basilica chymica," Frankfurt, 1623, p. 213.
