Literature and Legend about the Loadstone

That the loadstone was highly esteemed in the sixteenth century was well versified by Robert Norman in "The Newe Attractive."

The Magnes or Loadstones Challenge

Give place ye glittering sparkes, ye glimmering Diamonds bright,

Ye Rubies red, and Saphires brave, wherein ye most delight.

In breefe yee stones enricht, and burnisht all with gold,

Set forth in Lapidaries shops, for Jewels to be sold.

Give place, give place I say, your beautie, gleame, and glee,

Is all the vertue for the which, accepted so you bee.

Magnes, the Loadstone I, your painted sheaths defie,

Without my helpe, in Indian Seas the best of you might lye.

I guide the Pilots course, his helping hand I am,

The Mariner delights in me, so doth the Marchant man.

My vertue lies unknowne, my secrets hidden are,

By me the Court and Common-weale, are pleasured very farre.

No ship could sayle on seas, her course to runne aright,

Nor compasse shew the ready way, were Magnes not of might.

Blush then, and blemish all, bequeathe to mee thats due,

Your seates in golde, your price in plate, which Jewellers doo rewe.

Its I, its I alone, whom you usurpe upon,

Magnes my name, the Loadstone cald, the prince of stones alone.

If this you can denie, then seeme to make reply,

And let the Painefull sea-man judge, the which of us doth lye.

The Mariner's Judgement

The Loadstone is the stone, the only stone alone,

Deserving praise above the rest, whose vertues are unknowne.

The Marchant's Verdict

The diamond bright, the Saphire brave, are stones that beare the name, But flatter not, and tell the troath, Magnes deserves the same.

It was reported in the seventeenth century that ruptures were cured in Belgium by the help of the loadstone. The patient was first given a dose of iron filings, reduced to a very fine powder; thereupon a plaster made of crushed loadstone was applied externally to the affected part. This was said to produce a cure in the space of eight days. Probably the plaster was believed to draw the iron filings or some emanation from them through the affected parts toward the surface.

In medieval Europe this mineral was greatly valued for its therapeutic virtues. Trotula, the first of the female physicians connected with the celebrated School of Salerno, the centre of medical culture in Europe in the Middle Ages, and who wrote a treatise on female diseases, recommended the use of the loadstone in childbirth. The stone was to be held in the right hand, and the learned lady asserted that the wearing of a coral necklace would aid its beneficent effect. Both these substances are prescribed for this use by the Oxford teacher, John Gadesden (1300), in his "Rosa Anglica." Francisco Piemontese, who taught in Naples about 1340, also recommends the loadstone, but he directs that it be strewn with the ashes obtained by burning the hoof of an ass or a horse; according to this last authority, the stone should be held in the left hand.

That wounds caused by burning could be healed if powdered loadstone were sprinkled over them was confidently taught even in the seventeenth century. However, some ill effects were occasionally remarked when the substance was used medicinally, for it sometimes produced melancholia. In this case an antidote was found in the emerald, and we are assured that if a solution made from this stone were taken thrice a day for nine consecutive days, the melancholia would pass away.

In the sixteenth century in India, it was believed that a small quantity of loadstone taken internally preserved the vigor of youth, and Garcias ab Orta relates that a king of Ceylon, when an old man, ordered that cooking utensils of this material should be made for him, and had all his food cooked in these. Garcias claims to have this information direct from a Jew, Isaac of Cairo, who was ordered to make the vessels.

A loadstone amulet for the cure of gout is stated to have been worn by a native of the English county of Essex. The stone was sewed up in a flannel covering to which was attached a black ribbon for suspension from the neck. Of course it was worn beneath the clothing, although the encasing flannel must have prevented direct contact with the skin. This piece of magnetic iron ore measured about an inch and a half in width, and was two-tenths of an inch thick. The patient, a Mr. Pelly, was an elderly man, who had suffered for some time from annually recurring attacks of gout which prostrated him for from three to four months. Learning of the reputed virtues of loadstones, more especially of those of Golconda, he sent to India for one and he is said to have been thereby relieved of his disease.

In Persia a certain stone received the name of Shahkevheren or "King of Jewels," for it was reputed to attract all other precious stones, as the loadstone did iron. The greatest of the Sassanian monarchs, Khusrau II (590-628), had occasion to test the power of this wonderful stone. He had lost a ring of great price in the river Tigris, near the spot where some time later the Mohammedans founded the city of Bagdad. Taking a shahkevheren the monarch attached it to a line and literally fished for his ring, using the magic stone as a bait. We are told that the ring was recovered, and this must have greatly added to the reputation of the "King of Jewels."

In the ninth century Arabic treatise, translated from an earlier Syriac text and falsely attributed to Aristotle, a number of fabulous stones are noted. All of these were said to have attractive properties, and as the loadstone attracted iron, they attracted various substances, each having its special affinity. First, we are told of the stone that attracted gold, then, in turn, of stones that attracted silver, copper, and other metals. Probably the legend of the finding of these stones is based upon the employment of certain mineral substances in the purifying of gold, silver, etc. Among other fabulous or almost fabulous stones was one called askab, which, although of mean appearance, was able to break the diamond just as the diamond broke all other stones. Have we here an allusion to the polishing of the diamond by its own dust? It is not improbable that this art, in an incomplete form, was known to the Hindus long before it was practised and perfected in Europe.