In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a strange belief was prevalent among the ignorant to the effect that the fossil sharks’-teeth, the “tongue-stones,” were the teeth of witches who sucked the blood of infants; these “vampires” were called lamiæ in ancient times.[[393]] Probably the fact that a certain species of shark bore the name lamiæ gave rise to this idea, which was therefore merely due to a confusion of names. Nevertheless we can easily understand that this popular belief added to the repute of the glossopetræ, for the more dreaded the object the greater the power it was credited with possessing. In the seventeenth century De Laet (d. 1649), the Dutch naturalist and geographer, received in Leyden certain glossopetræ sent him by a friend in Bordeaux, who wrote that they would cure any one suffering from soreness of the mouth, whether this were the result of having eaten impure food, or were produced by some derangement of the secretions. The “tongues” were to be dipped in spring water and would cause bubbles to form therein; as soon as these disappeared, the water was to be used as a gargle, and the mouth was to be washed with it two or three times. De Laet’s friend assured him that this treatment would cure the disorder in twenty-four hours.[[394]]
A seventeenth century amulet of a fossil shark’s tooth, mounted in silver and found in an excavation at Salzburg, Austria, was among the objects exhibited by the writer for the New York branch of the American Folk-Lore Society, in the Department of Ethnology of the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago, in 1893. They are frequently found at Lake Constance but are from the ancient fossiliferous formations and not from the lake. They are often sold as amulets.
Belemnites. Fossilized bony end of extinct cuttlefish. From Aldrovandi’s “Museum metallicum,” Bononiæ, 1648.
Fossils whose form suggested that of a more or less acutely pointed shaft, were thought to possess special powers, sometimes offensive as against enemies, and again defensive for the protection of the wearer. Thus the belemnites,[[395]] considered to represent the form of a dart, when dissolved and taken as a potion, were said to prevent nightmare and to guard against enchantments. They are often either ash-colored or whitish, and sometimes reddish-black. All these varieties were frequently found during the sixteenth century in Hildesheim, and in the marble grotto near the castle of Marienburg, called the “Dwarf’s Grotto.”[[396]]
The umbilicus marinus, a fossil shell, which in form bore a great likeness to the human navel, was called “sea-bean” by sailors. Usually of a pale saffron hue, some specimens have a reddish or blackish tinge. In the sixteenth century it was believed to have astringent properties. We are also told that women used it as one of the ingredients of a cosmetic for whitening the complexion.[[397]]
Certain echinites (fossil sea-urchins) found on the Baltic coast are called by the peasants Adlersteine and Krallensteine (“eagle-stones” and “claw-stones”), since they believe that while the substance was soft eagles had seized them with their talons, thus producing the peculiar forms and markings. Whoever had a fossil of this description on his table while a thunder-storm was raging ran no risk of being struck by lightning.[[398]]
Reich describes another variety of echinite, which was popularly known as a “toad-stone,” the specimen he figures having been given him by a certain Johannis Krauss. In this appeared some large cavities, whose presence Reich found it very difficult to explain, until Krauss informed him that they had been made by a former owner of the fossil who had scraped out a few grains of the substance each year for medicinal use. He was persuaded that his long life—he attained the age of eighty—was entirely owing to his employment of this remedy.[[399]]
The trochites and entrochus, named Räderstein, or “wheel-stone,” by the Germans, are other fossils to which remedial or talismanic virtue was accorded in popular fancy. These “wheel-stones,” while detachable, fitted as closely together in the original formation as though they had been skilfully adjusted by a clever artisan.[[400]] De Laet states that when immersed in oil they gave forth bubbles and moved about spontaneously. Still another of these fossils believed to be amulets was the enastros, which De Boot terms the asteria vera, or genuine asteria, since it not merely showed a star-shaped marking as did the fossil coral bearing the name astroites, but was shaped like a five-pointed star. As with the trochites, chains of these little stars were found, closely joined together but separable from one another. Some called them “star-seals,” because the stellar imprint was sharp and clearly defined as though the work of an engraver or gem-cutter.[[401]] These fossils are types of encrinites.
