Aetites

In the magical tradition of Europe and the Near East (see: Magic in the Greco-Roman world), the aetites (singular in Latin) or aetite (anglicized) is a stone used to promote childbirth. It is also called an eagle-stone, aquiline, or aquilaeus. The stone is said to prevent spontaneous abortion and premature delivery, while shortening labor and birth for a full-term birth.

From Theophrastus onwards, the belief is also recorded that the stone had the ability to "give birth" to other stones, based on the crystals found within. This fed into the belief that at least some minerals could be gendered into male and female forms.

Mineralogy

The aetites is a limonite or siderite concretionary nodules or geodes possessing inside a small loose stone rattle when shaken. An official publication of the United States Bureau of Mines in 1920 defined an aetite:

A nodule consisting of a hard shell of hydrated oxide of iron, within which the yellow oxide becomes progressively softer toward the center, which is sometimes quite empty.

The American Geosciences Institute defines the eaglestone as "a concretionary nodule of clay ironstone about the size of a walnut that the ancients believed an eagle takes to her nest to facilitate egg-laying."

Ancient medicine

According to Pedanius Dioscorides (5.160), the aetite should be fastened to the left arm to protect the fetus; at the time of birth, it should be moved to the hip area to ease delivery. He also recommends them for the treatment of epilepsy, and says that when mixed with meat they will "betray a thief".

Pliny the Elder describes four types of aetites in his Natural History and outlines their magico-medical use:

Attached to pregnant women or to cattle, in the skins of animals that have been sacrificed, these stones act as a preventive of abortion, care being taken not to remove them till the moment of parturition; for otherwise procidence of the uterus is the result.