Hagstone

Hagstone: what was it used for?

Hung in stables to stop witches riding horses by night, over the bed against the nightmare, and tied to the stable key.

Hagstone: what does modern science say?

George Ewart Evans, as June Swann quotes him, called a pierced pebble “the kind which in Suffolk is hung by beds or outside the stable door to ward off the evil eye.”

Hagstone: what did the older authorities say?

Reginald Scot

In The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), which holds the nightmare a bodily disease, lists among the “magicall cures” for it: “hang a stone over the afflicted persons bed, which stone hath naturallie such a hole in it, as wherein a string may be put through it, and so be hanged over the diseased or bewitched partie; be it man, woman, or horsse.”

John Aubrey

Records in his Miscellanies that “to hinder the night mare, they hang in a string, a flint with a hole in it (naturally) by the manger,” to stop “the hag from riding their horses, who will sometimes sweat all night.”

The Catholic Encyclopedia

The Catholic Encyclopedia lists among the superstitions “most in vogue at different periods of history” the amulets, “things worn as a remedy or preservative against evils or mischief, such as diseases or witchcraft,” and “lucky and unlucky days, numbers, persons, things, actions,” noting that “the number thirteen continues to strike terror into the breasts of men who profess not to fear God.” Pliny tells of a stone that “conceives, it is said; a fact which it admits when shaken.”