This stripy green stone belonged to the Greek goddess Venus. The Greeks believed it had major magical powers when set in copper jewelry. The Romans switched things around a bit and turned malachite over to Juno, cutting it into triangular shapes to indicate her sacred peacock symbol. My favorite bit of malachite lore is that drinking from a goblet cut from this stone supposedly gave the imbiber understanding of the language of animals!
Garnets have much lore around them. The ancients believed them to have protective powers that prevented travelers from accidents and mishaps and also kept the sleeping from nightmares and bad dreams. It is said that the fiery glow of a garnet kept Noah and his ark afloat. A popular biblical gem, garnet was one of the stones used by King Solomon in his breastplate. In Asia, garnets were used as bullets, most notably in the rebellion in India in 1892. Garnet’s name comes from the Greek word for pomegranate, and the gem is associated with a Greek myth surrounding this fruit. Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, tasted three seeds from the pomegranate, dooming herself to spend half of the year in the underworld, married to Hades, god of the underworld.
