“A compassionate turquoise, that doth tell,
By looking pale, the wearer is not well.”
But the most curious of all these superstitious beliefs attached itself to the crapaudine, or toad-stone. It is most unattractive to sight, of an opaque dirty-brown tint, and known to mineralogists as a variety of trap-rock. It was believed to have most sovereign virtues against poison if pounded and drank, and, like the turquoise, to give warning of its presence by a change of colour, when simply worn in a ring. It was believed to exist in the head of the toad. Fenton, writing in 1569, says, “There is found in the heads of old and great toads a stone which they call borax or stelon; it is most commonly found in the head of a he-toad.” It was not easily attained, for the toad “envieth so much that man should have that stone,” says old Lupton, in his “Thousand Notable Things.” Hence came a true test for such stones, according to the same credulous author, who thus enlightens us:—“To know whether the toad-stone called crapaudina be the right and perfect stone or not, holde the stone before a toad so that he may see it, and if it be a right and true stone, the toad will leap toward it, and make as though he would snatch it from you.” It should be obtained, says a mediæval author, while the toad is living, and this is to be done by simply placing him upon a piece of scarlet cloth, “wherewithal they are much delighted, so that while they stretch out themselves as it were in sport upon that cloth, they cast out the stone of their head, but instantly they sup it up again, unless it be taken from them through some secret hole in the same cloth.”[117-*]
Fig. 138. | Fig. 139. | Fig. 140. |
Lupton, whom we have just quoted, tells us of “a rare good way to get the stone out of the toad,” which has the advantage of greater simplicity. It is to be done thus:—“Put a great or overgrown toad (first bruised in divers places) into an earthen pot; put the same into an ants’ hillocke, and cover the same with earth, which toad at length the ants will eat, so that the bones of the toad and stone will be left in the pot.” Boethius relates how he watched a whole night an old toad he had laid on a red cloth to see him cast forth the stone, but the tedious watch was not rewarded; the toad retained his jewel, and he had nothing from thence to “gratify the great pangs of his whole night’s restlessness.”
The Londesborough collection supplies us with two remarkable specimens of rings connected with toad superstition. [Fig. 138] is of mixed metal gilt, having upon it the figure of a toad swallowing a serpent. There is a mediæval story of a necromancer introducing himself to another professor of magic by showing him a serpent ring, upon which the latter, who did not desire any one to interfere with his practice, produced his toad-stone ring, observing that the toad might swallow the serpent, thereby intimating his power to overcome him. [Fig. 139] is curious, not only as containing the true toad-stone, but also that the stone is embossed with the figure of a toad, according to the description of Albertus Magnus, who describes the most valuable variety of this coveted gem as having “the figure of the reptile imprinted upon it.”
The elder poets have, as usual with them, turned into a moralisation this fabulous bit of natural history. Lyly, in his “Euphues,” observes, “the foule toad hath a faire stone in his head.” Shakspere has immortalised the superstition in the most effective and beautiful manner, when he declares how
“Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Yet wears a precious jewel in its head.”
Superstition did not confine its belief to a few charms; it ranged over more than we can now record. In the Londesborough collection is the massive thumb-ring delineated in [Fig. 140], having the tooth of some animal as its principal gem, fondly believed by its original owner to have mystic power over his well-being. To “make assurance doubly sure,” it is set all round with precious stones, all believed to have magical virtues.
Fig. 141. | Fig. 142. |