Snakestone Bead Folklore

Abstract

Distinctive accounts of the origin of snakestone beads occur in the folklore of Britain. The beads, usually formed of glass, were believed to be generated by the action of a knot of living snakes. This work considers snakestone bead folklore and explores when it may have developed—evaluating theories ranging from direct descent from the first century ad to early modern reinvention. Accounts of the creation of the snakestone bead from Scotland, Cornwall, and Wales are examined and compared, resulting in the identification of features unique to the folklore of each region.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors at Folklore for their insightful and helpful feedback on earlier drafts.

Archival Sources

Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Ashmole 1816.

Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Ashmole 1817b.

Edinburgh University Library Special Collections, The Carmichael Watson Project. http://www.carmichaelwatson.lib.ed.ac.uk/cwatson/en

Maclagan MSS, School of Scottish Studies Archive, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rachael Pymm

Rachael Pymm is an independent researcher, holding an MA from the History Department of Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. She is currently researching the folklore and medieval medical uses of snakestones, in their various forms. She has recently published two articles in the Geological Society Special Publications volume Geology and Medicine: Historical Connections (2017).