Toadstone

The toadstone, also known as bufonite (from Latin bufo, "toad"), is a semi-precious stone formed by the fossilization of a fish tooth. A mythical stone or gem that was thought to be found in the head of a toad. It was supposed to be an antidote to poison and in this it is like batrachite, supposedly formed in the heads of frogs. 

Toadstones were actually the button-like fossilised teeth of Scheenstia (previously Lepidotes), an extinct genus of ray-finned fish from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. They appeared to be "stones that are perfect in form" and were set by European jewellers into magical rings and amulets from Medieval times until the 18th century. The toad has been the subject of several beliefs. It was supposed to come from toads and was, among other things, supposed to change color when in contact with a poison, thus preventing the risk of poisoning.

Beliefs

Mainly used in the Middle Ages, it owes its name to a belief that it came from the skulls of toads. The latter were supposed to regurgitate the said stone when a red cloth was waved in front of them. According to Pierre Belon, the toad carries in its head "a very well polished stone called crapauldine which is said to cure certain illnesses".

From ancient times people associated the fossils with jewels that were set inside the heads of toads. The toad has poison glands in its skin, so it was naturally assumed that they carried their own antidote and that this took the form of a magical stone. They were first recorded by Pliny the Elder in the first century.

Like the fossilised shark teeth known as tonguestones, toadstones were thought to be antidotes for poison and were also used to treat epilepsy. As early as the 14th century, people began to adorn jewelry with toadstones for their magical abilities. In their folklore, a toadstone was required to be removed from an old toad while the creature was still alive. 17th century naturalist Edward Topsell wrote that this could be done by setting the toad on a piece of red cloth.

From the 14th century onwards, the stone was set in various jewels to give them magical properties. It was also used in witchcraft. These stones, called bufonites, chelonites, were considered alexipharmacs (antidotes presumed to be effective against bubonic plague), alexiters (against the bites of poisonous animals). Thus Peter of Appona made a great deal of it and doctors believed "that it resists venoms". Mounted in a ring, they protected against bad air; worn around the neck, as an amulet, they protected against quartan fever. Suspended from the chains of a languier, they were used, in the Middle Ages, to test or prove food and drink on the table of the great. It is also said to have been used in the treatment of epilepsy.

The true toadstone was taken by contemporary jewellers to be no bigger than the nail of a hand and they varied in colour from a whitish brown through green to black, depending on where they were buried. They were supposedly most effective against poison when worn against the skin, on which occasion they were thought to heat up, sweat and change colour. If a person were bitten by a venomous creature a toadstone would be touched against the affected part to effect a cure. Alternatively Johannes de Cuba, in his book Gart der Gesundheit of 1485, claimed that toadstone would help with kidney disease and earthly happiness.

Loose toadstones were discovered among other gemstones in the Elizabethan Cheapside Hoard and there are surviving toadstone rings in the Ashmolean Museum and the British Museum.

Origin

Jussieu demonstrated that these snake-eyed toadstools strangely resembled the teeth of a fish from the Brazilian coast, called the grondeur. Michael Bernhard Valentini, Antoine Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville, also regarded them as teeth of fish such as the grondeur, the sargue, the sea bream or the sea bass, commonly called "sea bass". These are in reality teeth of fossil fish, for Paul Delaunay, they are teeth of Sphaerodus, Lepidotes, Pycnodus, Mesodon, Microdon, etc.

Allusions in literature

The toadstone is alluded to by Duke Senior in Shakespeare's As You Like It (1599), in Act 2, Scene 1, lines 12 to 14:

Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

In James Branch Cabell's short story "Balthazar's Daughter" (collected in The Certain Hour) and its subsequent play adaptation The Jewel Merchants, Alessandro de Medici attempts to seduce Graciosa by listing various precious jewels in his possession, including "jewels cut from the brain of a toad".

Jewelry

Some toadstones were used in jewelry, including on a crown held at Aachen Cathedral used to coronate Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

Sourced from Wikipedia