Ancient Whispers from a Hag Stone
One of my favorite parts about writing historical fiction is the research that is involved. I’m a sucker for research. A lover of spending my days falling down one rabbit hole after another. Wandering off into obscure topics and learning all I can about things that I would have never known otherwise. Now that I think about it, that’s really how my first book The Gathering Room - A Tale of Nelly Butler actually came about! I read Marcus LiBrizzi’s book A Documentary History of the Nelly Butler Hauntings and then went off on my own researching adventure that ultimately led to me writing a fictional portrayal of the history and my whole life changing in a dramatic way! Research is awesome!
As I write my next book, which will be a prequel to The Gathering Room, I have done an extensive amount of research on England, specifically the area of Lancashire and it’s connection to the supernatural. I’m fascinated by the ancient stone and timber circles in Lancashire specifically but all of this wandering around the internet has led me to other folklore and down several glorious rabbit holes. One of which turned out to be Hag Stones.
If you are not familiar with Hag Stones let me clue you in on some of the things the internet taught me. Hag Stones or sometimes called Witch Stones, or Holy Stones, are reportedly (and I say that for a reason) stones that have a natural occurring hole through the middle of them. Wikipedia, never known to wander off into the realm of crystals, hocus pocus or fringe theories refers to them as Adder Stones. In any event, no matter what words you use, they are all the same thing, a stone with a natural occurring hole in it. I first came across them in my medieval England research but then became aware that they are actually found in folklore around the globe. From England, to Germany to Russia and even in Native American traditions.
So how does a hole occur naturally in these stones? Well you need water. Erosion is the number one reason for the holes that appear in these stones, which are usually sandstone, limestone, flint or some other sedimentary stone that was laid down millions of years ago. The holes are caused by water interacting with a smaller pebble and rubbing it until it creates a hole in the stone the pebble is sitting on. Or the hole can be created by just water erosion itself. In addition some Hag Stones are created by a clam!! The Piddock Clam, otherwise known as the boring clam, will borrow into the stone and create a bowl like depression that eventually wears all the way through the stone creating a hole. Because of this the best place to go looking for a Hag Stone is in coastal areas, beaches or rivers and streams where there is fast moving water. Remember that point, it’s important later.
As noted these stones pop up in folklore around the world with similar beliefs attached to them. The more mundane belief, and why they were called sometimes called Adder Stones, was the belief that these stones cured you of a snake bite, Adder being a venomous snake in Europe. But there are far more magical and supernatural properities attached to these stones beyond a mere cure for snake bites! First and foremost is the belief that if you find one of these stones you are very lucky indeed. The reason being is that you, yourself, didn’t actually find this stone, it found you! Legend states that these stones will turn up and be found by the people that will use them.
Hag Stones, Witch Stones or Holy Stones are supposedly also very rare, remember that point too, it’s important later. Only to be found by those who are capable of understanding their magical abilities. What are these magical abilities? Well first off is the hole itself. Reportedly if you are one of the said special individuals who have found a Hag Stone if you look through the hole you can see into the world of fairies! Now that sounds like fun! Look through the hole and glimpse a world of Tinker Bell and her friends flitting from one flower to another leaving trails of glitter all over the landscape! Conversely they also provide the holder with protection from evil entities. Apparently if you are conversing with someone you can look through the hole and tell if the person is a witch! Now that would be a cool tool to have because we’ve all met that person at a party or social gathering that we just don’t vibe with, the one that you just get an odd feeling about. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to whip a Hag Stone out of your purse, hold it up, look through the hole and then know for certain what the deal was?
Obviously I’m joking and making light of the history behind these stones, but the reality is for thousands of years people have believed in them. Believed that they protected you from evil spirits, could cure you of diseases and could give you great wisdom and insight. They were worn on leather strings around the neck, nailed above the door of homes, or placed on windowsills all in an effort to protect and enlighten in a time when people believed more in the unseen world than we do now.
If you are not aware there is a huge market out there for the unexplained, the supernatural, the magical. Sadly Hag Stones are now a marketable commodity that can easily be found on eBay, Etsy and Amazon. Clearly they are not as rare as all the websites touting their magical abilities would lead you to believe. For as little as $2 to as much as $30 you can purchase your own Hag Stone to protect you from whatever is lurking around in 2024. Surprisingly you don’t even need water to make a Hag Stone, a nice drill from Home Depot should do the trick! There are even group pages on social media where people post pictures of the Hag Stones they supposedly found naturally. Photos taken at the beach or along rivers, which would lend you to believe these are in fact true Hag Stones, yet the photos show multiple stones found, sometimes even dozens in one picture. To me that doesn’t seem like they are very rare, even if they were found in their natural state.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to stay with my son who lives in the Midwest. He has a beautiful home in a rural location located near areas dense with fossils. His own backyard being one of them! Because as you may or may not know, 300 million years ago the Midwest was actually a giant sea. My son’s back yard is quite steep in an upward direction as his home was built into a hill. Rare indeed for the flat Midwest. Because of this all the grandkids play in the front yard and just the chickens and the goats inhabit the small flat area in the back before the land rises steeply up the hill. It’s in this steep section of his backyard where a small portion of the hill has begun to erode away. As dirt and rocks fall out of this exposed area, my son has found some of the most amazing fossils!! Typical of what you would find in the Midwest they are fossils of tiny marine animals, aquatic plants and even whole clam shells echoing back to a time when the center of the United States was covered in water.
As I sat in his living room watching him pile rock after rock of fossils onto his coffee table, I marveled at each one, until the moment he laid a Hag Stone down in front of me! It’s the one pictured above. I recognized it immediately from my research and I asked him where he had gotten it. He told me it came out of the hill out back. I made sure again and again that it had truly come from outback and he couldn’t understand my fascination with it. I then explained to him my research on Hag Stones, their magical abilities and if he did in fact find this one among the other fossils then this Hag Stone was naturally occurring and very rare indeed!! Not only had he found it far from any modern source of water but it was likely 300 million years old!
My son, as with most of my children, does not find the world of the supernatural as fascinating as I do, so he quickly pushed the Hag Stone toward me and told me to take it home. “First off Mom I don’t want anything called a Hag Stone in my house. Secondly it clearly means more to you then it would to me!” Gotta love an honest kid!
I now have my very own naturally occurring, not purchased from a website, honest to goodness, rare, ancient Hag Stone!!! In this time of my life, when the weirdest of weirdest things have happened to me on a regular basis, I have to believe that this Hag Stone did indeed find me, just as the legends say. As my life continues to pass through this time of miraculous happenings, signs to obvious for me to ignore, synchronisities that shock me in their preciseness, and the undeniable proof that we don’t understand everything that surrounds us, I’m going to add coming into possession of this Hag Stone to that list. No matter your belief structure, traditional or non traditional. Whatever words you use to describe what you believe. Just keep your eyes open, the unseen world is all around you if you are just willing to seeing it!
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go peer into the world of the fairies. I’ll let you know if I see any glitter!