Hag Stone (Naturally Holed Beach Stone)

Sinderella's note

A hag stone is a beach stone with a hole worn straight through it by the ocean. Folk tradition says you look through the hole and see what's actually true. Sicilian women hang them by the door. *Sinderella* hangs one by the door. You can buy them on Amazon, my creature, but if you ever find one yourself on the Jersey Shore — keep it. Nobody else gets that stone.

The long version

A hag stone (also called an adder stone, a witch stone, a fairy stone, or in Italian a *pietra forata*) is a stone with a hole worn naturally through it — usually by ocean tide on a beach. The folk magic tradition is some of the oldest in Europe and Northern Africa: looking through the hole reveals truth, intentions, and (in some traditions) the supernatural. Sicilian women hang them above the front door for protection. English witches in the 1600s wore them on string around the neck. Coastal communities everywhere on the Atlantic still pass them down. Sinderella keeps one above the door of the back room where she reads. They are *free* if you walk a beach often enough — they are also for sale on Amazon for fifteen dollars in a small velvet bag, which feels deeply wrong because the *whole point* is that they are found, not bought. But: if you don't have time to walk a beach for three years, the bought ones still work the same way. Folk practice: hold one to your eye and look at the person you're trying to read. They don't know you're doing it. You can also dangle one over a tarot spread for clarification. Saint Brigid for the keepers of stones. The Atlantic for the rest.