Magic of Hag Stones

Folk legend says hag stones can be worn for protection. They are also called “fairy stones” and to peer through the hole is to see into a different world. Natural objects, especially the beguiling ones (just how did that hole get there?) are like this, plain in their mystery.

I’ve found the practice holding a stone smoothed by waves and carved by hungry bivalves (touched by great, inhuman forces) is a protection in itself. The narrowing focus of looking through such a stone opens worlds in the mind, of imagination and serenity of focus.

I like to treat these stones the way precious stones are treated, and wear them with fine silver, silk, and gemstones. Appreciate their varying textures and spontaneous, ancient, irregular shapes. Picking a stone up from the shore feels like snatching it for a moment out of it’s erosion time stream. It will still be stone long after I am no longer a person, but eventually we’ll all be rejoined and indiscriminate from the Earth.