Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/409

 when I was a boy, there was found at Rome, a vial full of milky liquid, which, when sprinkled on any kinds of stone, made them receive such sculpture as the hand of the graver was wont to execute. It was a vial discovered in a most ancient palace, the matter and art of which was a subject of wonder to the Roman people.”

Gervase drew from Comestor (Regum lib. iii. c. 5).

“If you wish to burst chains,” says Albertus Magnus, “go into the wood, and look for a woodpecker’s nest, where there are young; climb the tree, and choke the mouth of the nest with any thing you like. As soon as she sees you do this, she flies off for a plant, which she lays on the stoppage; this bursts, and the plant falls to the ground under the tree, where you must have a cloth spread for receiving it” But then, says Albertus, this is a fancy of the Jews.

Conrad von Megenburg relates: “There is a bird which in Latin is called merops, but which we in German term Bömheckel (i.e. Baumhacker), which nests in high trees, and when one covers its children with something to impede the approach of the bird,