Folklore & Superstition

Opal has often been surrounded by negative reports and superstitions, associated with thieves, witchcraft and other mythologies. However, it appears opal has been in and out of favour throughout history. Most of these bad luck stories occur in Europe, whilst the Orient remains a lover of opal. 

Good qualities of opal

In the beginning, around 250 BC, opal was considered to be the most precious and most prized of all gemstones. The Romans valued opal above all other gems, mainly because of its combination of “all the colours and beauty of other gems combined,” (Pliny above). Furthermore, in 5 AD opal had been named “Opthalmus Lapis” or the “eye-stone”, and empowered its owner with such powers as to be able to tell the immediate future and warn against impending disaster! Hardly a bad luck story!

After a period during which bad luck stories emerged, by the middle of the 16th Century opal was again being written of as being good and able to improve eyesight as well as now to possess all the virtues attributed to all other gemstones. The writer Giovanni Porta lists other attributes for opal such as to stimulate the heart and prevent heart disease, a cure for despondency and depression.

Bad qualities of opal

The beginnings of these “bad luck” stories seem to appear in the early writings of Marbodus, the bishop of Rennes, who wrote a gemstone treatise known as the “Lapidarium” in 1060AD and in which opal is described as “patronus furum” or the patron stone of thieves. This superstition suggests that an opal was able to make its wearer invisible and hence able to steal whilst invisible.

After what appears to be a period of good luck for opal, the bad luck stories began again for no apparent reason. In the beginning of the 13th century, King Alphonso X in Spain again stated the connection between opal and thieves. Over the next two centuries opal was associated with the “Black death”, or the Bubonic plague, where it is said that an opal would maintain its brilliant colour up until the time of death of the wearer.

Perhaps the most damaging bad luck story for opal that is still rumoured or remembered, and that affects the sale of opal today to some of the European community, must be the writings of Sir Walter Scott in 1828 in one of his books of the popular novel series “The Waverley Novels”. The particular tome in question is titled “Anne of Geierstein” in which, as the story goes, Anne’s grandmother Hermione habitually wore an opal in a ribbon in her hair. The opal it was said would reflect the grandmother’s mood in its colour, red with anger, green with calm, brilliant fire when happy. As the story proceeds, Holy water is sprinkled on the opal at the christening of her daughter, the opal is said to shoot out colour and then go pale losing all colour. Hermione dies, the opal turns to dust, the public blame the opal for the death  and opals are condemned to bad luck. Opal sales were cut by half in Europe, and the superstition remains!

Again, in 1880 opal marketing took a dive due to King Alphonso XII of Spain, (a long name Francisco de Asis Fernando Pio Jaun Maria Gregorio Pelayo) who had an affair with a beautiful woman, (the Contesse de Castiglione). When Francisco became King in 1874 he forsook this lover for the Princess Mercedes. Angry, the Contesse sent a wedding present of a fine gold ring set with an outstanding opal. So taken by the ring the King gave it to Mercedes who died a few months later from a mysterious illness. The story goes that the ring was passed on to the grandmother, sister, and sister-in-law, all of whom also die mysteriously. Finally the King wore the ring and he too died! This ends with the ring being hung around the neck of a statue of the Virgin of Alumdena, the Patron saint of Madrid. What is perhaps missing here is the outbreak of Cholera in the region killing 100,000 people, with the two things coinciding opal is again the victim of bad luck!.

In conclusion, there does not appear to be any associated bad luck stories associated with the discovery, mining or marketing of opal in Australian opal history, the whole of which post-dates all of the European literature.