Legends and Facts Associated With Diamonds

The Crown Cameo worn by 
Crown Princess Victoria of
Sweden on her wedding day.
It is made of cameos, pearls
and diamonds.

       The diamond fields of Asia were discovered so long ago that its date is lost in antiquity. For thousands of years few people knew the location and it was shrouded in mysterious and dreaded legends. The stone was known by various names in different countries. One name was adamas from the Greek Adamant - the Unconquerable and the Latin adamare -to love, and adamas-hard. The Hebrews called it "the Samur" and in ancient times they believed it was a worm capable of boring through the hardest objects. With this worm, Moses was supposed to have engraved on the 12 stones of the High Priest's Breastplate the tribes of Israel. It was known as "the stone cutting all other stones." 

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       There is a legend to the effect that King Solomon desired the aid of the Samur in building his Temple. The only creature who knew how to find the Samur was the eagle. The Wise King ordered his servants to climb to the eagle's aerie and when the mother bird was absent, to place her eggs in a glass bottle, and leave them in the nest. When the eagle returned she could not warm her eggs, nor could she break the bottle with her beak. Thereupon the eagle flew to the GEMS Samur Mountains to obtain the "stone which cuts all stones." Solomon's servants, the supernatural jinn, followed the bird, and brought enough samurs from the mountains to cut the blocks for the temple. 

       In the early part of the sixth century, before Christ, Prince Kie of Shu (China) visited the Emperor Wu, a descendant of the Emperor Wen. The courtiers asked him questions about the mysterious lands to the west from which so many curious substances came. Prince Kie replied, "In the Western Sea, the Mediterranean, there is a great island on which there is a forest of trees laden with precious stones. The place is inhabited by over 10,000 families-those of the artists who cut and engrave the gems. The country is called FU-LIN and in a direction northwest of the island is a ravine, hollowed out like a bowl hundreds of fathoms deep. Men throw meat into this valley and great birds take it up in their beaks. In the meat are found precious stones which have stuck to the flesh."

       Alexander the Great was supposed to have penetrated to a valley inhabited by terrifying serpents, the sight of which would cause a man's death. Alexander used mirrors as weapons and the monsters perished on observing their own awesome death-dealing reflections. In the 9th century, during the reign of Haroun-al-Rashid, Caliph of Bagdad, these tales became part of The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor. As Sinbad relates, a giant roc carried him to the Valley of the Diamonds where he found serpents so tremendous they were capable of devouring elephants. 

       Diamond is said to typify Purity and Constancy and to have the powers of preserving peace. It also was said to have the powers of averting insanity and rendering poison harmless. The Constellation Taurus-the Bull-is the second sign of the Zodiac and exerts its influence from April 20th to May 19th. 

       Persons born under this sign are stubborn, rebellious to advice, proud and difficult to approach. The subject will be straightforward, just, inquisitive and shrewd. Such an individual has a superior brain, fit to command, to govern. These subjects are conservative of ideas. In love, fickle and jealous. The Taurus subject is long-lived; his friends, while many, may contain a large number of undesirables.

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