version the parent swallows effected the cure by the application of celandine (chelidonia), which in consequence was a specific for sore eyes.[1] It is interesting to notice that by an intelligible transference the flesh of swallows[2] and the swallow plant[3] come to be recommended not only for ophthalmia, but also for snake-bite.
Among the magical stones which were catalogued in later classical times there are some which enjoy the reputation of putting serpents to flight or curing the victims of snake-bite, which cannot with certainty be brought under any of the above categories of so-called snake stones.[4] And mention should be made of a class of snake stone which appears to derive its name not from its serpentine shape, markings or origin, but from its function of extracting poison, for which it is qualified by its adhesive properties.[5] Thus among the Malays snake stones are manufactured by magicians out of a mixture of metals. They are described as about an inch long, oval in shape and perforated. They are placed upon the wound, to which they adhere and will not fall off until they have sucked out the poison.[6] In the Eastern Levant a rare kind of yellow porous stone was similarly used to absorb "every particle of venom from the wound."[7]
- ↑ Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. (41), 98, xxv. 89 (50), 89. Lizards similarly cured their blinded young with an unknown herb and hence an agate stone with a lizard carved on it cured ophthalmia (Aelian, Nat. An. v. 47). In modern folk-lore the swallow uses a magic stone which in consequence provides an infallible remedy for ophthalmia. (In Pliny the swallow-stone is used for epilepsy. Cf. "Seventeenth Centuiy Charm," Wright, Folk-Lore, xxiii. p. 235.) Swainson, The Folklore of British Birds, pp. 51-52. Swainson quotes a reference to the use of celandine from Chester's Love's Martyr, but it is possible that this may be derived directly from Pliny rather than from popular belief.
- ↑ Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxix. (26). 81.
- ↑ Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxv. (55), 101. It is administered in wine.
- ↑ E.g. the stone from the river Pontius (Aelian, Nat. An. ix. 20) or the purple stone of Indian origin mentioned by Philes (No. 77, 1. 1424), which like the Scotch adder-stone was remedial in child-birth and also curative of snake-bite.
- ↑ Cf. Lemnian Earth, above, p. 264.
- ↑ Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 303.
- ↑ Kelly, Syria and the Holy Land, p. 127, quoted Henderson, op. cit. p. 165.
