THE TOAD-STONE. BY W. H. GAMLEN. (Read at Sidmouth, July, 1873.) THE use of amulets is of great antiquity. Sir Walter Scott, in the introduction to The Talisman, says that the Persians employed them more than other nations; and they do so still. They were supposed to prevent, as well as cure, diseases, and to resist and detect the use of poisons. When the causes and nature of diseases were so little understood as they were up to two centuries ago or less, it is no wonder that full scope was given to the imagination for their cure, and that superstition was fostered by those who made a trade of pretending to subdue them. Indeed, up to this time nervous complaints, as they are called, are the great source of employment to mesmerists and others, who use empirical practices for removing "what real pain, and that alone, can cure." It seems that among amulets the toad-stone has long taken a prominent place. A bone found in the side of the toad is said by Pliny to do wonders; and Edward Fenton, in his Notable Things, written in 1569, said, "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. You shall know whether the toad-stone be the right and perfect stone or not. Hold the stone before a toad so that he may see it, and if it be the right and true stone, the toad will leap towards it, and make as though he would snatch it, he envieth so much that man should have that stone." Shakespeare draws from it the well-known simile in As You Like It: "Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head;" and at the present moment even, there are persons who believe in its remedial efficacy. The one which is now exhibited belonged to the late Mr. Blagdon, of Puddington, and has been used repeatedly as a "charm" within the last sixty years. Persons from different parishes in that part of Devon used to come to his house to borrow it to cure fits (probably epilepsy and hysteria) and king's evil, or scrofula; and though he tried to convince them of the absurdity of using such a thing, he found that he was considered unkind and churlish in withholding it, and had to let it go in order not to give offence to the applicants, one of whom brought him a coffee-pot, on returning the stone, as a present, in acknowledgment of his kindness in lending it. An intelligent man, who was then in his service, writes that "it was tied to a string and hung round the neck, so that the stone might reach the pit of the stomach, and used for different complaints that were supposed to be beyond the power of regular medical men curing, such complaints having been caused by some wicked person having obtained power from the devil to do mischief. The person to obtain the power* must be a communicant of the Church of England or Rome. When I was a boy I was told how to obtain the toad-stone. The toad was to be killed and buried in an antshill, and the flesh would be eaten by them." This stone is evidently of considerable antiquity. The quatre-foil in the back of its silver mounting probably points to the fourteenth century for its origin. Mr. Blagdon's family came to Devonshire from London about 1580. They were merchants, and engaged in woollen manufactures. Being desirous to ascertain what this stone really is, the writer asked Dr. Gray, of the Zoological Department of the British Museum, who said that it was the tooth of a fossil fish, and referred him to Mr. Woodward, of the Mineral and Fossil Department, who confirmed this, and showed him a tooth almost identical with it from the palate of the Sporodus gigoas, found in the Kentish coral rag and oolite. The palate and jaws of this fish are literally paved with these hemispherical teeth, which are supposed to have enabled it to crush the shell-fish on which it fed. Mr. Woodward has seen several such reputed toad-stones, which were all made from these teeth, which, it appears, formed the staple of these shameless frauds. The subject of the operation of "charms"-really the This power was said to be obtained by keeping back a portion of the elements on receiving the sacrament, and, after carrying them 1ound the church and using certain incantations, giving them to a toad met with in the churchyard. power of the mind over the body-the predominance of ideas, as it is called (whatever that may mean) is one which is very obscure and difficult of explanation. The cure of warts by this means is an ascertained fact, and yet how can the mind act on an excrescence of the skin? A friend of the writer had such a reputation for this power that he had to refuse to exercise it at last, from being pestered by applicants on Sunday and at other inconvenient times; yet he told him that he began it out of mere fun, and did nothing more than look at the patient's hands in a serious manner. The writer himself has also cured many in the same way, doing literally nothing to the warts, yet numerous and unsightly ones were gone within a month after the "charming" took place. Probably the toad-stone cured in the same manner; for cured those who wore it were, for the time, if not permanently: no case of failure was ever reported. NOTICE OF SUPPOSED ACOUSTIC JARS FOUND BY JOHN S. AMERY. (Read at Sidmouth, July 23rd, 1873.) WHEN the chancel of the parish church of St. Andrew, at Ashburton, was renovated, in about 1838, by the late vicar, the masons in removing the plaster came upon some old urns built into the wall, and having small pieces of slate over their mouths. Supposing they might contain something of interest or value they dug them out, but found them quite empty. The reason of their being empty, and so completely buried in the plaster, remained a mystery. They were thought by many at that time to be cinerary urns, discovered, in excavating the foundations of the church, on what was probably an ancient burying-place, and wishing to preserve them on the same spot they were placed in these holes. Last year Lieut. C. Worthy, son of the present incumbent, took the matter up, and sent the following letter, with a sketch of one of the urns, to the curator of the British Museum : "The Vicarage, Ashburton, Devon, 6th Dec., 1872. "Dear Sir,-The enclosed sketch represents an earthen vessel, found in the chancel wall of St. Andrew's Church, Ashburton (of which my father is the present incumbent), whilst the chancel was undergoing restoration. Leland says that Ashburton Church was founded by 'Ethelward fil' Gulmi. de Pomeroy,' who lived about A.D. 1137. "In 1186 Bishop John the Chaunter, the then bishop of Exeter, appropriated to his chapter the church of Ashburton. "In 1314 (3rd April) Bishop Stapledon visited the church, which he found in a dilapidated condition, especially the north aisle, which was ruinous. He ordered the church to be repaired, and the north aisle to be rebuilt, and a vestry to be constructed on the north side of the chancel.' No trace of this vestry now remains. "The architecture of the greatest part of the present building appears to date from the commencement of the fifteenth century, with the exception of the north entrance, apparently of the transition to semi-Norman period, and the window of a small chapel immediately behind the altar (now used as a vestry), which is Early English. The east wall, separating the chancel from this chapel, is about 3 feet thick. The whole chancel is said to be of an earlier date than the rest of the edifice; but it was so thoroughly transformed before I first saw it, by the introduction of new windows and the blocking up of the ancient doorway, that I am not prepared to vouch for this assertion at present. "Between 1836 and 1840 the alterations to which I have alluded were made by the late vicar, and it was then that the workmen found the original of the enclosed sketch, with some nine or ten others, lying in what one of them describes to me as 'holes like those left by masons for the reception of their scaffold-poles.' "They were not regularly piled one above another, but, to use my informant's own words, 'were scattered all over the north and south walls of the chancel on their interior sides.' "The only ornament is a zig-zag line over a very faint white mark; no other indentation or moulding whatever. I may add that the vessels were all empty and unsealed, but had a small piece of slate placed in front of their mouths. They are of the roughest description of common red clay, like a flower-pot in appearance and quality, and were firmly fixed in the recesses with mortar. "Yours, &c., "CHAS. WORTHY, late 82nd Regt." To this letter he received a reply from Mr. Winter Jones, in which he says:— "The subject is interesting, but is also very obscure; for the object or purpose of these is not known. Many have been found in chancel walls and in passages running under chancel floors, their mouths flush with the face of the wall." Subsequently one of the jars was sent to London, and exhibited before the Society of Antiquarians. In January of this year Lieut. Worthy's letter was printed. |