About the Fairy Stones of the Blue Ridge Mountains

The popular fancy for the "Fairy Stones" from a peak of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Patrick County, Virginia, is said to be directly traceable to the tale, "Trail of the Lonesome Pine," by John Fox, Jr., who makes one of these pretty staurolite crystals exercise an important influence over the destinies of his hero and heroine. This was cleverly utilized by the manager of a New York theatre, when he gave a souvenir performance of a dramatized version of the story, by presenting one of these "Fairy Stones" to each lady in the audience, a gift not only in perfect rapport with the play, but one highly appreciated by the recipients, few of whom were not unconsciously influenced by the symbolic half-religious, half-mythical quality ascribed to this attractive little gem.

Collections of stones and pebbles, often of little or no intrinsic value but supposed to possess occult powers, are handed down from father to son in many Hindu families of the poorer class. The accompanying illustration shows an aged Hindu, as he appeared to a recent traveller, decorated with such stones to the number of about three hundred on a ceremonial occasion. In this case they were all pierced and threaded on cords, so as to be attached to the person, and the old man proudly declared that, thousands of years ago, one of his ancestors was a playmate of the god Krishna, who had bestowed the stones upon him as a special mark of divine favor.