island of Ceylon and carried in his head a large ruby which shone for many miles amidst the darkness of night. The Indian philosopher Barthoveri said that “the serpent is malefic although it carries a ruby in its head.” Dieudonné of Goyon is said to have killed a terrible dragon at Rhodes and to have drawn from its head a wonderful iridescent stone the size of an olive. Some few writers substitute the diamond for the ruby, but whether we take the many-coloured stone of Dieudonné (which it has been said was a diamond) or the stones of the Sun, the ruby and the diamond, the import of the legends are similar. The dragon as the symbol of the lower forces whether as the poisonous emanations of stagnant waters or as the Serpent of Eden—the planet Mars and one of his heavenly Houses, Scorpio, or the planet Saturn and his heavenly House, Capricorn—is continually exposed to the benefic rays of the Sun. These rays are personified by the contests between the Sun-Angel Michael and the Dragon and our well-known St. George. The three skulls, said to be the skulls of the “Three Kings” in the jewelled “Shrine of the Magi” in Cologne Cathedral, have their names Melchior, Gaspar and Balthazar worked on them in rubies, perhaps because the Sun, planet of the ruby, was the accredited planet of Christianity as noted by Albertus Magnus and the Cardinal Dailly. The names of the Magi have also been given as Megalath, Galgalath and Sarasin—Apellius, Amerus and Damascus—Ator, Sator and Peratoras. In their allegories the Rosicrucians follow very nearly the names on the skulls in the 12th century Shrine at Cologne, viz.: _Jasper or Gaspar, the white lord with a diamond Melchior, the bright lord with a diamond Belshazzar or Balthazar, the treasure lord with a ruby._ It is said that Henry VIII wore on his thumb a ring in which was set a ruby—some say a diamond—from the tomb of St. Thomas A’Becket. This ruby, known as the “Régale of France,” was the talismanic gem of the French King Louis VII who, in accordance with a battle-vow, visited the tomb at Canterbury in the year 1179. Whilst offering his devotions he was asked by the priests at the shrine to give as an offering this beautiful jewel. Being loath to part with his talisman, the King agreed to give one hundred thousand florins in its stead, to which generous substitution the Canterbury fathers humbly agreed. But the precious ruby which dazzled all with its brightness, turning night into day, refused to be thus protected and, flying from the setting of the ring on the King’s finger, fixed itself on the Saint’s tomb. Swedenborg recognizes in the ruby a gem of passionate devotion and likens it to the appearance of the Lord’s Divine Sphere represented in the celestial Heavens.