“There are many ways,” says Del Rio, “in which the Philosopher’s Stone is
made. Writers contest with each other which is the right way. Pauladamus
opposes the opinion of Brachescus; Villanosanus will have none of the mode
of Trevisanus. So one assails another, and all call each other foolish and
ignorant.” But however they may have disputed how to make it, no one
succeeded in finding the right way, for no one knew where to look for it;
and yet the Philosopher’s Stone was before all their eyes to be enjoyed by
all alike, but to be appropriated by none. This precious stone, which went
by various names, the “Universal Elixir,” the “Elixir of Life,” the “Water
of the Sun,” was thought to procure to its happy discoverer and possessor
riches innumerable, perpetual health, a life exempt from all maladies and
cares and pains, and even in the opinion of some--immortality. It
transmuted lead into gold, glass into diamonds, it opened locks, it
penetrated everywhere; it was the sovereign remedy to all disease, it was
luminous in the darkest night. To fashion it--so the alchemists
said--gold and lead, iron, antimony, vitriol, sulphur, mercury, arsenic,
water, fire, earth, and air were needed; to these must be added the egg of
a cock, and the spittle of doves. Really, said one shrewd and satiric
writer, it only wanted oil, vinegar, and salt, to make of it a salad.
Now the curious thing is--as we shall see in the sequel--the alchemists
were not far out in their opinion. All these ingredients, or rather most
of them--the cock’s egg and the dove’s spittle only excepted--are to be
found combined in the Philosopher’s Stone, and only recent science has
established this fact.
As the possessor of this stone was sure to be the most glorious, powerful,
rich, and happy of mortals, as he could at will convert anything into
gold, and enjoy all the pleasures of life, it is not surprising that the
Philosopher’s Stone was sought with eagerness. It was sought, but, as
already said, never found, because the alchemists looked for it in just
the place where it was _not_ to be found, in their crucibles. Medals were
struck on which were inscribed “Per Sal, Sulphur, Mercurium, Fit Lapis
Philosophorum,” which was a simplification of the receipt. On the reverse
stood, “Thou Alpha and Omega of Life, Hope and Resurrection after Death.”
It was identified with Solomon’s seal; it was called Orphanus, the One and
Only. It was thought at one time that the Emperor had it in his crown,
this Orphanus, and that it blazed like the sun at night; but the German
emperors enjoyed so little prosperity that philosophers came to the
conclusion that the stone in the imperial crown was something quite
different; it brought ill-luck rather than good-fortune.
Zosimus, who lived in the beginning of the fifth century, is one of the
first in Europe to describe the powers of this stone, and its capacity for
making gold and silver. The alchemists pretended to derive their science
from Shem, or Chem, the son of Noah, and that thence came the name
al_chem_y, and _chem_istry. All writers upon alchemy triumphantly cite the
story of the golden calf in the thirty-second chapter of Exodus, to prove
that Moses was an adept, and could make or unmake gold at his pleasure. It
is recorded that Moses was so wroth with the Israelites for their
idolatry, “that he took the calf which they had made and burned it in the
fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the
children of Israel drink of it.” This, say the alchemists, he never could
have done had he not been in possession of the Philosopher’s Stone; by no
other means could he have made the powder of gold float upon the water.
At Constantinople, in the fourth century, the transmutation of metals was
very generally believed in, and many treatises upon the subject appeared.
Langlet du Fresnoy, in his _History of Hermetic Philosophy_, gives some
account of these works. The notion of the Greek writers seems to have been
that all metals were composed of two ingredients, the one metallic matter,
the other a red inflammable matter which they called sulphur. The pure
union of these substances formed gold; but other metals were mixed with
and contaminated by various foreign ingredients. The object of the
Philosopher’s Stone was to dissolve and expel these base ingredients, and
so to liberate the two original constituents whose marriage produced gold.
For several centuries after this the pursuit flagged or slept in Europe,
but it reappeared in the eighth century among the Arabians, and from them
re-extended to Europe. We are not going to trace the history of alchemy
_downwards_, and see one student after another wreck his genius and time
on this rock, nor see what use was made of the belief in it by impostors
to enrich themselves at the expense of the credulous--we will follow the
superstition _upwards_, and track the stone to the spring of the belief in
its supernatural powers. The search for the stone will take us through
strange country, give us many scrambles; but, if the reader will
condescend to accompany me, I believe I shall be able to bring him to the
very real and original stone itself.
The following story I give as it was told to me by some Yorkshire mill
lasses, in their own delightful vernacular. I forewarn the reader that the
golden ball in the story is the same as the Philosopher’s Stone, as we
shall hear presently:
“There were two lasses, daughters of one mother, and as they came home
from t’ fair, they saw a right bonny young man stand i’ t’ house-door
before them. He had gold on t’ cap, gold on t’ finger, gold on t’ neck, a
red gold watch-chain--eh! but he had brass. He had a golden ball in each
hand.[24] He gave a ball to each lass, and she was to keep it, and if she
lost it, she was to be hanged. One o’ t’ lasses, ’twas t’ youngest, lost
her ball. She was by a park-paling, and she tossed the ball, and it went
up, up, and up, till it went over t’ paling, and when she climbed to look,
t’ ball ran along green grass, and it went raite forward to t’ door of t’
house, and t’ ball went in, and she saw ’t no more.
“So she was taken away to be hanged by t’ neck till she were dead, acause
she’d lost her ball.
[“But she had a sweetheart, and he said he would get the ball. So he went
to t’ park-gate, but ’twas shut; so he climbed hedge, and when he got to
t’ top of hedge, an old woman rose up out o’ t’ dyke afore him, and said,
if he would get ball, he must sleep three nights i’ t’ house. He said he
would.
“Then he went into t’ house, and looked for t’ ball, but couldna find it.
Night came on, and he heard spirits move i’ t’ courtyard; so he looked out
o’ t’ window, and t’ yard was full of them, like maggots i’ rotten meat.
“Presently he heard steps coming upstairs. He hid behind t’ door, and was
still as a mouse. Then in came a big giant five times as tall as he, and
t’ giant looked round, but did not see t’ lad, so he went to t’ window
and bowed to look out; and as he bowed on his elbows to see spirits i’ t’
yard, t’ lad stepped behind him, and wi’ one blow of his sword he cut him
in twain, so that the top part of him fell in t’ yard, and t’ bottom part
stood looking out o’ t’ window.
“There was a great cry from t’ spirits when they saw half t’ giant
tumbling down to them, and they called out, ‘There comes half our master,
give us t’ other half.’
“So the lad said, ‘It’s no use of thee, thou pair o’ legs, standing aloan
at window, so go join thy brother’; and he cast the bottom part of t’
giant after top part. Now when t’ spirits had gotten all t’ giant they was
quiet.
“Next night t’ lad was at the house again, and saw a second giant come in
at door, and as he came in, t’ lad cut him in twain; but the legs walked
on to t’ chimney and went up it. ‘Go, get thee after thy legs,’ said t’
lad to t’ head, and he cast t’ head up chimney too.
“The third night t’ lad got into bed, and he heard spirits stirring under
t’ bed; and they had t’ ball there, and they was casting it to and fro.
“Now one of them had his leg thrussen out from under bed, so t’ lad brings
his sword down and cuts it off. Then another thrusts his arm out at t’
other side of t’ bed, and t’ lad cuts that off. So at last he had maimed
them all, and they all went crying and wailing off, and forgot t’ ball,
and let it lig there, under t’ bed; and the lad took it and went to seek
his true love.[25]]
“Now t’ lass was taken to York to be hanged; she was brought out on t’
scaffold, and t’ hangman said, ‘Now, lass, tha’ must hang by thy neck till
tha’ be’st dead.’ But she cried out:
‘Stop, stop, I think I see my mother coming!
O mother! hast brought my golden ball
And come to set me free?’
‘I’ve neither brought thy golden ball
Nor come to set thee free,
But I have come to see thee hung
Upon this gallows tree.’
“Then the hangman said, ‘Now, lass, say thy prayers, for tha’ must dee.’
But she said:
‘Stop, stop, I think I see my father coming!
O father! hast brought my golden ball
And come to set me free?’
‘I’ve neither brought thy golden ball
Nor come to set thee free,
But I have come to see thee hung
Upon this gallows tree.’
“Then the hangman said, ‘Hast thee done thy prayers? Now, lass, put thy
head into t’ noose.’
“But she answered, ‘Stop, stop, I think I see my brother coming,’ etc.
After which she excused herself because she thought she saw her sister
coming, and her uncle, then her aunt, then her cousin, each of which was
related in full; after which the hangman said, ‘I wee-nt stop no longer,
tha’s making gam o’ me.’ But now she saw her sweetheart coming through the
crowd, and he held overhead i’ t’ air her own golden ball; so she said--
‘Stop, stop, I see my sweetheart coming!
Sweetheart, hast brought my golden ball
And come to set me free?’
‘Ay, I have brought thy golden ball
And come to set thee free;
I have not come to see thee hung
Upon this gallows tree.’”
In this very curious story, the portion within brackets reminds one of the
German story of “Fearless John,” in Grimm (_K. M._ 4), of which I remember
obtaining an English variant in a chap-book in Exeter when I was a
child--alas! now lost. It is also found in Iceland,[26] and is indeed a
widely-spread tale. The verses are like others found in Essex in
connection with the child’s game of “Mary Brown,” and those of the Swedish
“Fair Gundela.” But these points we must pass over. Our interest attaches
specially to the golden ball. The story is almost certainly the remains of
an old religious myth. The golden ball which one sister has is the sun,
the silver ball of the other sister is the moon. The sun is lost; it
sets, and the trolls, the spirits of darkness, play with it under the bed,
that is, in the house of night, beneath the earth.
But the sun is not only a golden ball, but it is also a shining stone; and
here at the outset we tell our secret: the sun is the true Philosopher’s
Stone, that turns all to gold, that gives health, that fills with joy.
In primeval times, our rude forefathers were puzzled how to explain the
nature of sun and moon and stars, and they thought they had hit on the
interpretation of the phenomenon when they said that the stars were
diamonds stuck in the heavenly vault, and that the sun was a luminous
stone, a carbuncle; and the moon a pearl or silver disk. Even the classic
writers had not shaken off this notion. Anaxagoras, Democritus,
Metrodorus, all speak of the sun as a glowing stone,[27] and Orpheus[28]
calls the opal the sunstone, because of its analogy to that shining ball.
So Pliny also.[29] The old Norse spoke of the stars as the “gemstones of
heaven,” so did the Anglo-Saxons.[30]
But perhaps the clearest idea we can have of the old cosmogony is from the
pictures preserved to us of the world of the dwarfs. When a superior
conception of the universe was general, then the old heathen idea sank,
and what had been told of the world of men was referred to the underground
world, peopled by the dwarfs, who were the representatives of the early
race conquered by the Britons, and by Norse and Teuton, a race probably of
Turanian origin. Our British and Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian forefathers
knew of the cosmogony of the conquered race, and came to suppose that they
inhabited another world to them, a world of which the vault that
overarched it was set with precious stones; and as the aboriginal
inhabitants were driven to live in caves, or in huts heaped over with turf
so as to be like mounds, they regarded them as a subterranean people, and
their world to be underground. In a multitude of stories the trolls or
dwarfs are said to live in tumuli or cairns. This is nothing more than
that their hovels were made of sticks stuck in the ground, gathered
together in the middle and turfed over. The Lapp hut, even the Icelandic
farmhouse, look like grass mounds. In many tales we hear of human children
carried off by the dwarfs, and when these children are recovered they tell
of a world in which they have been where the light is given by diamonds
and a great carbuncle set in a stony black vault.
William of Newburgh[31] says that at Woolpit (Wolf-pits), near Stowmarket
in Suffolk, were some very ancient trenches. Out of these trenches there
once came, in harvest-time, two children, a boy and a girl, whose bodies
were of a green colour, and who wore dresses of some unknown stuff. They
were caught and taken to the village, where for many months they would eat
nothing but beans. They gradually lost their green colour. The boy soon
died. The girl survived, and was married to a man of Lynn. At first they
could speak no English; but when they were able to do so they said that
they belonged to the land of St. Martin, an unknown country, where, as
they were once watching their father’s sheep, they heard a loud noise,
like the ringing of the bells of St. Edmund’s Monastery. And then, all at
once, they found themselves among the reapers at Woolpit. Their country
was a Christian land and had churches. There was no sun there, only a
faint twilight; but beyond a broad river there lay a land of light.
Giraldus Cambrensis in his _Itinerary of Wales_ tells another queer story
of the underground world, and notices that some of the words used in it
are closely related to the _British_ tongue.[32] But in neither story are
the sun and stars spoken of as stones incrusting the vault.
The underground _Rose-garden of Laurin the Dwarf_, by Botzen, is, however,
illumined by one great carbuncle.[33] The same sun-stone--a white,
marvellous stone--reappears in the “Grail Story,” which is from beginning
to end a Christianised Keltic myth. In it the Grail is originally not
invariably a basin or goblet, but a stone. It is so in Wolfran von
Eschenbach’s _Parzival_. In that there is no thought of it as a chalice:
it is a stone which feeds and delights all who surround, cherish, and
venerate it.
Whatsoever the earth produces, whatsoever exhales,
Whatever is good, and sweet, in drink and meat,
That yields the precious stone, that never fails.
In the Elder Edda, in the _Fiölvinnsmal_, Svipdagr is represented as
climbing to the golden halls of heaven, and when he comes there he asks
who reigns in that place. The answer given him is:--
Menglöd is her name ...
She here holds sway,
And has power over
These lands and glorious halls.
Now Menglöd means she who rejoices in the _Men_, the Precious Stone,[34]
that is, the sun. She is the holder of the sun, as in the Yorkshire story
the lass holds the golden ball.
Matthew Paris says that King Richard Cœur de Lion was wont to tell the
following story:--“A rich and miserly Venetian, whose name was Vitalis,
was wandering in a forest in quest of game for his table, as he was about
to give his daughter in marriage. He fell into a pit that had been
prepared for wild beasts, and on reaching the bottom found there a lion
and a serpent. They did not injure him. By chance a charcoal-burner came
that way and heard the lamentations of those in the pit. Moved with pity,
he fetched a rope and ladder and released all three. The lion, full of
gratitude, brought the collier meat. The serpent brought him a precious
_stone_. The Venetian thanked him and promised him a reward if he would
come to his house. The poor man did so, when Vitalis refused to
acknowledge any debt, and threw the collier into prison. However, he
escaped, and went with the lion and serpent before the magistrates and
told them the tale, and showed them the jewel given him by the serpent.
The magistrates thereupon ordered Vitalis to pay to the collier a
reasonable reward. The poor man also sold the jewel for a very large
sum.”[35]
Richard must have heard this story in the East; there are no lions in
Venetian territory. Moreover the story is incomplete. We have the same
story in a fuller form in the _Gesta Romanorum_.
A seneschal rode through a wood and fell into a pit, in which were an ape,
a lion, and a serpent. A woodcutter saved them all. Next day the
woodcutter went to the castle for the promised reward, but received
instead a cudgelling. The following day the lion drove to him ten laden
asses, and he had them and the treasure they bore. Next day, as he was
collecting wood and had no axe, the ape brought him boughs with which to
lade his ass. On the third day the serpent brought him a stone of three
colours, by the virtue of which he won all hearts, and came to such honour
that he was appointed general-in-command of the emperor’s armies. But when
the emperor heard of the stone he bought it of the woodcutter. However,
the stone always returned to the original owner, however often he parted
with it.
The same story occurs in Gower’s _Confessio Amantis_. The story spread
throughout Europe, and is found in most collections of household tales. It
occurs in Grimm’s _Kinder Märchen_ (No. 24), and in Basili’s book of
Neapolitan tales, the _Pentamerone_ (No. 37).
All these were derived from the East, and were brought to Europe by the
Crusaders. The story occurs in various Oriental collections. The Pâli tale
is as follows:--
In a time of drought, a dog, a serpent, and a man fell into a pit
together. An inhabitant of Benares draws them up in a basket, and they all
promise him tokens of gratitude. The man of Benares falls into great
poverty; the dog thereupon steals the king’s crown whilst he is bathing,
and brings it to his preserver. The man who had been helped by the other
betrays him, and the preserver is imprisoned. The poor man is about to be
impaled when the serpent bites the queen; and the king learns that she can
only be cured by the man who is on his way to execution. So the poor
fellow is brought before the prince and the whole story comes out.[36] In
this version the stone does not appear; nor does it in the Sanskrit
_Pantschatantra_.[37] But in the Mongol _Siddhi-kür_ (No. 13) we have the
stone again. A Brahmin delivers a mouse from children who teased it, then
an ape, and lastly a bear. He falls into trouble and is put in a wooden
box and thrown into the sea. The mouse comes and nibbles a hole in the
box, through which he can breathe, the ape raises the lid, and the bear
tears it off. Then the ape gives him a wondrous stone, which gives to him
who has it power to do and have all he wishes. With this he wishes himself
on land, then builds a palace, and surrounds himself with servants. A
caravan passes and the leader is amazed to see the new palace, buys the
stone of the man, and at once with it goes all the luck and splendour, and
the Brahmin is where he was at first. Again the thankful beasts come to
his aid. The mouse creeps into the palace of the new owner of the stone
and discovers where he hides it, and with the aid of the bear and ape it
is again recovered. Here we have the serpent omitted, which is the
principal animal to be considered, for really the serpent is the owner of
the stone that grows in its head. This idea is very general--that the
carbuncle is to be found in a serpent’s head. Pliny has this notion;
indeed it is found everywhere.[38] The origin of this myth is that the
great serpent is the heaven-god--and on the gnostic seals we have the
Demiurge so represented as a crowned or nimbed serpent. In the head of
this great heaven-god is the sun, the glorious stone that gives life and
light and gladness and plenty. In the West the story was told that the
Emperor Theodosius hung in his palace a bell, and all who needed his help
were to ring the bell. One day a snake came and pulled the bell. The
emperor, who was blind, came out to inquire who needed him; then he
learned that a toad had invaded the nest of the serpent. So he ordered the
toad to be removed. Next day the grateful serpent brought the emperor a
costly stone, and bade him lay it on his eyes. When he did this he
recovered his sight.
The same story is told of Charlemagne. He was summoned to judge between a
toad and a serpent, and decided for the latter. In gratitude the snake
brought the Emperor a precious stone. Charles gave it, set in a ring, to
his wife Fastrada. It had the power to attract love. Thenceforth he was
inseparable from Fastrada, and when she died he would not leave her body,
but carried it about with him for eighteen years. Then a courtier removed
the jewel and flung it into a hot spring at Aix-la-Chapelle. Thenceforth
the emperor loved Aix above every spot in the world, and would never leave
it.
In the story of Eraclius, the hero finds a stone that has the power of
preserving the bearer from injury by water. Eraclius, armed with this
stone, lies at the bottom of the Tiber, as one asleep, and is not drowned.
In _Barlaam and Josaphat_ the hermit undertakes to give his pupil a stone
which will afford light to the blind, wisdom to fools, hearing to the
deaf, and speech to the dumb.
There is a strange story in the _Talmud_[39] of a serpent that has a stone
which gives life. A man goes in quest of it. The serpent tries to swallow
the ship in which he sails. Then comes a raven and bites off the serpent’s
head and the sea is made red with its blood. A dragon catches the falling
stone and touches the dead serpent with it; it revives and again attacks
the ship. Then another bird kills the creature, and this time the man
catches the stone. The power of the stone was so great that it revived
salted birds that lay on the table ready to be eaten, and they flew away.
In Buddhist stories, the original signification of the marvellous stone is
completely lost, as completely as in the European mediæval stories. The
Indian Buddhists remembered that there was a wondrous stone of which
strange stories had been told, and which possessed the most surprising
powers, and they made use of the idea to illustrate their doctrine--the
stone was no other than the secret of Buddha. He who attained to that was
rich, happy, serene. It is called the “Tschinta-mani,” that is, the
Wishing-stone, because he who has it has everything that can be desired.
In the Buddhist collection of stories entitled _The Wise Man and the Fool_
is the tale of the king’s son, Gedon, who, grieved at the misery there is
in the world, goes in quest of the “Tschinta-mani.” He takes with him his
brother Digdon. They reach a castle, where he is warned to strike at the
door with a diamond bat. Then five hundred goddesses will come forth, each
bearing a precious stone, but only one of these is the Wishing-stone. He
must select the stone without speaking. He does so, and chooses the right
one. On his way home, on board ship, a storm arises, and he is wrecked;
but, as he bears the precious stone, he is not drowned, and he saves his
brother. Digdon, envious, steals the stone, and puts out his brother’s
eyes, and goes home. Gedon follows, forgives his brother, recovers the
stone and his sight.
Elsewhere the Wishing-stone is described as giving light by night as well
as by day, as far as one hundred and twenty voices could be heard calling,
the one catching and repeating to another; and by this light could be
seen the seven kinds of treasures falling from heaven like a rain, which
are offered to all.
The idea of the marvellous, luminous, enriching, health-giving stone
remains, its original significance absolutely lost, and is given a new
spell of life, in that it is used as a symbol of the teaching of Buddha.
In Europe, also, the idea of the marvellous stone remains; it is not used
allegorically, except in the Grail myth, but it haunts men’s minds; they
believe in it, they suppose it must be found, and they try to manufacture
it out of all kinds of ingredients.[40]
Neither Arab nor European alchemist, nor Buddhist recluse, dreamed that
the stone that gave light, that nourished, that rejoiced, that enriched,
was the sun shining above their heads. The conception of the sun as a
stone was so old, so rolled and rubbed down, that they had no notion
whence it came. The idea remained, and influenced their minds strangely;
but it never occurred to them to ask whence the idea was derived.
There is something pitiful in looking at the wasted lives of those old
seekers, bowed over their crucibles, inhaling noxious vapours, wearing out
the nights in fruitless experiment; but, like all history, that of the
alchemists teaches us a lesson--to look up instead of looking down--a
lesson to seek happiness, wealth, contentment, in the simple and not the
complex, in light instead of in darkness.
I believe that this is the only one of my articles in which I have drawn a
moral, but the moral is so obvious that it would have been inexcusable had
I passed it over. But I know that as a child I resented the applications
in _Æsop’s Fables_, and perhaps my reader will feel a like objection to
having a moral appended to this essay. That I may dismiss him with a smile
instead of a frown, I will close with a copy of verses extracted by me
some thirty and more years ago, from--I think--a Cambridge University
undergraduates’ magazine, verses probably new to my readers; but as they
enforce the same moral in a perfectly fresh and charming manner, and as
they deserve to be rescued from oblivion, I conclude with them:
I was just five years old, that December,
And a fine little promising boy,
So my grandmother said, I remember,
And gave me a strange-looking toy:
In its shape it was lengthy and rounded,
It was papered with yellow and blue,
One end with a glass top was bounded,
At the other, a hole to look through.
‘Dear Granny, what’s this?’ I came, crying,
‘A box for my pencils? but see,
I can’t open it hard though I’m trying,
O what is it? what can it be?’
‘Why, my dear, if you only look through it,
And stand with your face to the light;
Turn it gently (that’s just how to do it!),
And you’ll see a remarkable sight.’
‘O how beautiful!’ cried I, delighted,
As I saw each fantastic device,
The bright fragments now closely united,
All falling apart in a trice.
Times have passed, and new years will now find me,
Each birthday, no longer a boy,
Yet methinks that their turns may remind me
Of the turns of my grandmother’s toy.
For in all this world, with its beauties,
Its pictures so bright and so fair,
You may vary the pleasures and duties
But still, the same pieces are there.
From the time that the earth was first founded,
There has never been anything new--
The same thoughts, the same things, have redounded
Till the colours have pall’d on the view.
But--though all that is old is returning,
There is yet in this sameness a change;
And new truths are the wise ever learning,
For the patterns must always be strange.
Shall we say that our days are all weary?
All labour, and sorrow, and care,
That its pleasures and joys are but dreary,
Mere phantoms that vanish in air?
Ah, no! there are some darker pieces,
And others transparent and bright;
But this, surely, the beauty increases,--
Only--_stand with your face to the light_.
And the treasures for which we are yearning,
Those joys, now succeeded by pain--
Are _but_ spangles, just hid in the turning;
They will come to the surface again.
B.
So the old ideas, old myths, are turned and turned about, and form new
combinations, and are ever evolving fresh beauties, and teaching fresh
truths. Perhaps in the consideration of these ancient myths, and seeing
their progressive modifications, their breaking up, their coalitions, we
may find the fresh application of the old saw, that there is nothing new
under the sun.