[Jewelry making - Article 00676] - Re: [Orchid] Opals Are Bad Luck Myth

[Rick Martin]

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    I=92ve always been mystified how a stone as full of life and beauty as
    precious opal could be regarded as bad luck.  The only bad luck
    associated with opal is not being lucky enough to own a good one, and
    that=92s what I=92ve been telling my happy opal customers for nearly
    three decades now. 

    Sir Walter Scott, who originated the historical novel form and
    authored the classic =93Waverly=94 novels and =93Ivanhoe,=94 wrote the=
 1829
    novel =93Anne of Geierstein=94 (174 years ago, not 300 as earlier
    stated).  An opal played a role in it but not with Anne, the heroine.
     It belonged to her grandmother Hermione, daughter of a Middle
    Eastern shaman, who died in something close to the circumstances that
    have been described here. 

    But it=92s important to remember that Scott, who did his research very
    carefully, based much of his tale on material from Goethe and
    earlier writers.  His story is set in 1474, and it=92s clear that Scot=
t
    took the opal superstition from an earlier time.  The =93bad luck=94 m=
yth
    originated in the Middle Ages. 

    After many years of research I think I=92ve found the truth, or most
    of it. Let=92s begin with Seigneur Marbodus, Bishop of Rennes in
    Normandy, who wrote =93Lapidarium=94 about 1075.  In it he said that o=
pal
    =93conferred invisibility on the wearer enabling him to steal by day
    without risk of exposure to the baneful dews of night.=94  That was no=
t
    an endorsement of opal-wearers, especially coming from someone as
    powerful as a medieval bishop! 

    Before Marbodus designated opal the Talisman of Thieves, only good
    things had been written about it.  But Marbodus was probably trying
    to save his own neck because Rennes is in Normandy which was then the
    dukedom of Robert the Devil, father of William the Conquerer.  Robert
    attributed his evil nature to the belief that his mother, tempted
    with opal jewelry, gave herself to the Prince of Darkness himself and
    so produced him, the heir to the throne. Marbodus probably felt it
    was =91politically correct=92 to say bad things about opal given his
    powerful patron=92s beliefs. 

    Then, from 1347 to 1350 the Black Death ravaged Europe.  It has been
    documented that in Venice during the Plague, someone made the
    fanciful observation that opals worn by plague victims were brilliant
    up to the point of death, then were believed to fade and became
    lifeless like their owners. During and after the Plague Italian
    jewelers who earlier had considered opal a favored gem considered it
    =93a badge of dread.=94 It=92s likely that the opal =93bad luck=94 in =
Scott=92s
    novel was based on these two frightening myths. 

    Unfortunately Marbodus=92s slander has endured for the better part of
    a thousand years, given new twists along the way by the imaginative. 
    It=92s up to jewelers to change that silly perception.  Remember this
    rhyme attributed by some to Tiffany & Co. and others to a person
    named Tassion at the Smithsonian Institution: 

    =93October=92s child is born for woe, And life=92s vicissitudes must k=
now;
    But lay an Opal on her breast and Hope will lull those fears to
    rest.=94 

Rick Martin
MARTIN DESIGNS



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