Prompt: What is the coolest thing you have ever found, and kept?

Hag stones? What on earth does that mean?

Well… I am glad you came prepared for a lecture. Ehem…

Chapter 1: Hag Stones

“A Hag Stone, often referred to as an Adder Stone, is a unique type of rock characterized by a naturally formed hole piercing straight through it. These stones have been shrouded in mystique for centuries, with many cultures attributing magical qualities to them. It’s said that possessing a Hag Stone could grant one the power to cure venomous snake bites or to peer through the veil of enchantment, revealing the true form of witches or fairies when gazed upon through the stone’s aperture.”
-Rockseeker.com

Okay, that is all the history needed – end of lecture.

I found my hag stone at a friend’s house after we returned from swinging over streams clinging to grape vines hanging in loops from the tall oak trees. I had fallen off of the vine and landed flat in the stream. As I sat up, I grabbed a handful of silt and stone. Inside was this really neat stone with holes all through it.

It felt like a little lens into another world. I looked through it – still soaking in the cool, muddy stream. The trees bent inward as if pulled upon by a mighty rope. The stream glistened.

“It makes everything weird. Pretty, too.” I had said.

It felt like looking into somebody else’s reality. The scene viewed through the holes in the stone became unique and teeming with its own activity and life.

We played as pirates looking for a hidden land filled with treasure and adventure.

“Look!” I screamed to my lanky friend, “There is treasure in that mound! I can see it gleaming, and the fairies are dancing!”

We scampered from our hidden hollow and marched to the pile of aggregate stone. Tasked with the job of moving the stones in the pile to find the treasure – we both picked through the pile until we found what we had come for. Treasure.

In a swift pull, I yanked the stone from its rest. It was the treasure. A small dark grey rock with a strange pattern etched into it. It was a trilobite fossil. The hag stone had led us to the real treasure… a fossil.

Both finds exist today in my lockbox. I was probably 8 or 9 when I found the stone and the fossil. I have hung on to them the whole time.