Talk:Madstone (folklore)

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There may be a connection with the Chinese legend of the SnakeStone http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=477240

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https://stephenjessetaylor.wordpress.com/category/folklore/

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https://stephenjessetaylor.wordpress.com/category/folklore/

Madstone Account: Folklore or Truth?

My mother grew up in a log cabin with 11 other siblings, deep in the Oklahoma woods. One of her brothers was bitten by a rattlesnake when he was young, and his leg swelled up "as big around as a basketball", my mother would say. A neighbor, that lived about a mile away, kept a madstone. One of the boys jumped on a horse and rode off as fast as he could. He and the neighbor, a native American, soon returned in the neighbor's wagon, carrying a jug that contained the madstone.

The 'madstone', according to the folklore of the people where my mother grew up, was an organ from an albino deer. It was kept stored in fresh milk. However, this madstone was from a regular deer, not albino. The milk would have to be changed daily.

They quickly began the process of trying to extract the venom from his leg. One by one, they would cut an X into his leg and apply the madstone to the cut. When the madstone was full, it would fall off. They would then rinse it out in the milk, cut an X and apply it again. They repeated this process until my uncle's leg was almost nothing but X's. It seemed to have worked. He lived.

Years later, when my uncle passed away in his 60's, you could still see the X's all over his leg. Most of my mother's family talked about it freely, including my uncle that was bitten. And they all claim, if it wasn't for the madstone, my uncle would have died.

(The happenings in the above account, occurred in or about 1939.) Jamie Wooten 9/24/2022 Txfosterdad (talk) 15:19, 24 September 2022 (UTC)