1945 – Sea Bean: Amulet
- Physical description:
- Large sea bean resembling a kidney in size and shape. These beans were used as amulets for childbirth.
- Museum classification:
- Sea Witchcraft
- Size:
- 45 x 55 x 18
- Information:
See also 1800 and 1946.
Donated by Jane Darke.
Sea Heart - Entada Gigas.
Sea beans cross the Atlantic on ocean currents from Central and South America, and can be found on beaches in Cornwall, Scotland, Iceland, the Faeroes and Scandinavia.
They have been prized for their magical power for centuries. An Icelandic poem (the H'sdr'pa) describes the Br'singamen, the priceless treasure of the Goddess Freyja, as a 'sea kidney'.
In Norway and the Faeroes, kidney-shaped beans were also known as 'elf kidneys'. In Scotland they came to be known as Mary's Kidneys, after the Virgin Mary. They were used as amulets to aid childbirth (Rev. A. Stewart, 1893).
See Audrey Meaney, 'Drift Seeds and the Br'singamen', Folklore, Vol. 94, No. 1 (1983), pp. 33-39.
Scarborough Museum has a one of these sea beans, collected in 1912 in Uist in the Hebrides, which was used as an amulet against drowning (information supplied by Tabitha Cadbury - see her report 'The Clarke Collection of Charms and Amulets).- Resource:
- Object
- Materials:
- Plant
- Copyright ownership:
- Treetrunk Ltd
See also 1800 and 1946.
Donated by Jane Darke.
Sea Heart - Entada Gigas.
Sea beans cross the Atlantic on ocean currents from Central and South America, and can be found on beaches in Cornwall, Scotland, Iceland, the Faeroes and Scandinavia.
They have been prized for their magical power for centuries. An Icelandic poem (the H'sdr'pa) describes the Br'singamen, the priceless treasure of the Goddess Freyja, as a 'sea kidney'.
In Norway and the Faeroes, kidney-shaped beans were also known as 'elf kidneys'. In Scotland they came to be known as Mary's Kidneys, after the Virgin Mary. They were used as amulets to aid childbirth (Rev. A. Stewart, 1893).
See Audrey Meaney, 'Drift Seeds and the Br'singamen', Folklore, Vol. 94, No. 1 (1983), pp. 33-39.
Scarborough Museum has a one of these sea beans, collected in 1912 in Uist in the Hebrides, which was used as an amulet against drowning (information supplied by Tabitha Cadbury - see her report 'The Clarke Collection of Charms and Amulets).