Tongue stones

Tongue stones: what was it used for?

Worn as amulets against poison, and hung from the “adder-tongue trees” set on the side-tables of the courts of Europe, to be dipped in drink and draw out any poison.

Tongue stones: what does modern science say?

In 1667 Nicolas Steno, setting them beside the teeth of a shark’s head he had dissected, found them as like “as egg to egg,” and judged that those who called the larger tongue-stones sharks’ teeth were not far from the truth.

Tongue stones: what did the older authorities say?

Pliny

Reports that the glossopetra, which resembles the human tongue, is said to fall from the heavens during the moon’s eclipse, and is held highly necessary for selenomancy, divination by the moon.

Pliny

Pliny already has the tongue-stone: “Glossopetra, which resembles the human tongue, is not engendered, it is said, in the earth, but falls from the heavens during the moon's eclipse; it is considered highly necessary for the purposes of selenomancy. To render all this however, still more incredible, we have the evident untruthfulness of one assertion made about it, that it has the property of silencing the winds.” The Catholic Encyclopedia would class the later use under the amulets “worn as a remedy or preservative against evils or mischief.”