The offering of precious stones to attract the favor of gods or saints is really a talismanic use of such gems and is intimately connected with the wearing of gems for their talismanic or therapeutic effect. The gift established a sort of relation between the being whose help was desired and the petitioner, and the gem was the medium through which the favor was bestowed.
The legend of the royal princess who was canonized by the Church as St. Enimie (d. 628 or 630 A.D.) contains an account of a miraculous spring and also enshrines the popular view of the cause of the strange outlines of an extensive mass of heaped-up boulders. This saint was a daughter of the French king Clotaire II (d. 628). Her most ardent wish was to devote herself exclusively to the service of Christ, but her royal parent insisted upon a marriage with one of the great nobles. The princess, who was the fairest of the fair, put up an earnest prayer that the Lord would destroy her beauty, even at the expense of some dreadful malady, so that she might cease to be an object of desire for men. Her prayer was heard and she was stricken with leprosy which entirely blotted out her charms. Not long after this an angel appeared to her in a dream and directed her to bathe in the Fountain of Boule, in the region of Gévaudan. On doing so she was immediately cured of her leprosy, but as soon as she went away from the spring to return to the royal residence, the malady returned. A second attempt had the same favorable and unfavorable results, and she now recognized that she must remain near the spring. So after bathing there a third time and being again completely cured, she erected a monastery on the spot and became the prioress. The institution flourished, but a few years later the saintly prioress was horrified to see that the Devil was busy with her nuns. Once more she sought for divine aid, and she was given authority to imprison the Evil One should she catch him in the monastery. This she did, but the Devil was crafty enough to make his escape. Near the spot where the monastery stood was a mass of heaped-up boulders, through which led a way called the Chasm Road which led to a rocky aperture of unknown depth. This was fabled to afford egress and ingress to the Devil in his passage out of and back to the infernal regions. Along this road he fled when he escaped from the monastery; St. Enimie fearlessly pursued, but the agile demon was on the point of slipping back again into his own realm, when the saint made a supreme appeal and called upon the rocks to help her. As she raised her arms in supplication, one of the largest boulders, called “La Sourde,” moved of its own accord and fell upon the Devil, pinning him fast to the ground beneath its ponderous weight. In his rage and despair he made frantic efforts to free himself and his bloody claws left an imprint on the rock. This mark, still observable a half-century ago, though it has now disappeared, was prosaically explained by scientists as a stain of iron-oxide. The other boulders were in motion to assist in the good work, but when the Devil had been caught they stopped short in their downward course, and this is supposed to account for the strange angles at which they stand.[[500]] It would be pleasant to fancy that His Satanic Majesty eventually failed to make his escape, but unfortunately the ever-recurring instances of his activity from the age of St. Enimie down to our own time preclude this belief.
An heirloom in the family of Dom Pedro of Brazil is said to have been loaned to one of the pioneer aviators, Santos-Dumont, by Dom Pedro’s daughter, the Comtesse d’Eu. This was a medal of St. Benedict and had been long regarded as a powerful talisman in the Braganza family. One of its princely members had a striking proof of this virtue in 1705, when, after having worn the medal but two weeks, he was saved from deadly peril by the timely discovery and consequent defeat of a plot. Santos-Dumont had just experienced a terrible fall while experimenting with his new airship in the Rothschild park near Paris, and this it was that induced the Comtesse d’Eu to loan him the talismanic medal, with the injunction that he should always wear it on his person, and the assurance that if he did so no further harm could befall him. The talisman seemed to do its work well, for although the aviator had many narrow escapes, he was always saved from serious injury. Unfortunately, however, a thief picked it from the pocket of his coat while he was busily engaged in work on an airship in a Paris machine-shop.[[501]]
While it was customary to close the shops of the goldsmiths on Sundays and feast-days, a special exception permitted the “Confrérie de St. Eloi,” the goldsmiths’ guild, to open a single shop (not always the same one) on each Sunday and feast-day, the profits of the sales being devoted to providing a dinner on Easter Day for the poor of the Hôtel Dieu.[[502]] This combination of commercialism and philanthropy has illustrations in our own day, and, whatever may be the ulterior motives, some good results are certainly attained.
The Well of St. Cuthbert, near Cranstock, Newquay, England, long enjoyed the repute of miraculously curing the ailments of infants. Not only were curative powers attributed to the waters of the well, but also to a perforated stone alongside of it. As recently as 1868 a puny infant is said to have been passed through the orifice of this stone with the firm expectation that this act would strengthen the infant and bring good luck to it.[[503]]
In the region of the Abruzzi, in Italy, more especially in the province of Teramo, wonderful virtues are attributed to the intercession of St. Donato. So great is thought to be his power to cure those afflicted with epilepsy that in this region the disease is called the malady of St. Donato. This saint, however, is credited with much more extensive powers, for he is believed to cure hydrophobia, to prevent the ill effects of the Evil Eye, and in general to bring to naught the enchantments of witches. Such being his powers, it is not surprising that his image was added to many amulets, those figuring the lunar crescent being frequently surmounted with the bust of the saint. This type of amulet owes its supposed efficacy to the horn-like shape of the crescent, horns or substances having a likeness to a horn, like certain branches of coral, being regarded as a sure protection against the Evil Eye. A curious amulet bears the bust of St. Donato surmounting a crescent moon within which is the dreaded number thirteen. This fateful number is considered to be a source of misfortune for those who do not wear it inscribed on an amulet; but it becomes a source of good fortune and a happy life for those who possess such an amulet.[[504]]
A notable instance of the use of a saint’s name to facilitate the perpetration of a crime is afforded in the case of the poison known as Aqua Tofana. This appears to have been a preparation of arsenic and was concocted by a woman named Tofana, a native of Palermo, in Sicily, who eventually took up her abode in Naples and devoted herself to the preparation and sale of her poison in Naples, Rome and elsewhere. To divert suspicion she used vials marked “Manna of St. Nicholas of Bari,” and bearing the image of this saint. Most of her clients are said to have been women who were anxious to rid themselves of their husbands, and she must have had a large practice in this specialty, for so many husbands died in Rome in a mysterious manner that in 1659 the authorities finally took cognizance of the matter and instituted a searching investigation. This revealed the fact that there existed in Rome a secret society entirely composed of women who wished to “remove” their husbands by poison. The leader of this society and many of the members were duly executed, but Tofana does not seem to have been molested.
Many strange superstitions as to the saints prevail among the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of New Mexico. If a saint whose aid has been invoked fails to respond to the appeal, his image is shut up in some receptacle until he vouchsafes to render the service desired. On the other hand, if the image of a saint falls to the ground, this is interpreted as a sign that the saint has performed a miracle. One means of forcing a saint to perform a miracle was to hang the image head downward; this was especially recommended in the case of St. Anthony. All strangers who presented themselves on St. Anthony’s day or St. Joseph’s day were to be hospitably received and entertained, for one of them might be the saint himself. Those who wished to read the future were instructed to put the white of an egg in a glass of water on the eve of St. John’s day; on examining the contents of the glass the next morning they would see written in black characters on the white background a prophecy of what was to happen. On this saint’s day women were assured that if they cut the tip of their hair with an axe, or merely washed it, they would be blessed with an abundant growth of hair.
BLOODSTONE MEDALLION, SHOWING THE SANTA CASA OF LORETO CARRIED BY ANGELS TO DALMATIA FROM GALILEE