394 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
sea and wheat on the land. "2e
This spring month was, and is still, the period when pearl-fishing
begins in the Orient. Another pearl proverb repeats the evangelical
saying in this form : " Do not throw pearls under the feet of swine. ' *
A
Tonquinise legend of the origin of pearls represents them as springing
from the blood of a young princess who was slain by the king, her
father, because she had betrayed to her husband the secret of a magic
bow, whose death-dealing arrows always flew to their mark. In his
anger at his daughter's act, the father drew his scimitar and beheaded
her, but with her last breath she prayed that her blood might be turned
to pearls. Her prayer was heard and now the finest pearls of this land
are found in the waters about the place where she died.27
From
blue sapphires the color may be extracted so that they become white, in
such sort that they excellently imitate the diamond, so well, indeed,
that the fraud can only be detected by an expert jeweller. This art was
known at an early period, and no doubt induced many writers to ascribe
certain of the qualities of the diamond to the sapphire. As
illustrating this, a Rabbinical author states that a certain man went
to Rome to sell a sapphire. The purchaser said to him :"I will buy it
provided I may first test it.'' He placed it on an anvil and struck it
with a hammer; the anvil was split and the hammer was broken to pieces
but the stone remained in its place uninjured.28
The
virtues of the sapphire are enumerated at length by Bartolomasus
Anglicus, the old scholastic philosopher, who flourished in the first
half of the thirteenth century and
" G. W. Freytag, "Arabum proverbia," Bonns ad Khenam, 1843, vol. iii, Pt. 1, p. 495.
"Helvetius, "De l'esprit," vol. ii, p. 17.
" Johannis Braunii, " Be Vestitu Sacerdotum Hebrœorum," Âmatelodami, 1680, p. 683.
