Garnet

Garnet is the name of a group of silicate minerals rather than of one species. Its members share a crystal structure but differ in make-up, falling into two main series: pyrope, almandine and spessartine, which carry aluminium, and uvarovite, grossular and andradite, which carry calcium. Reddish shades are the most common, though garnets come in nearly every colour, blue being the rarest. The word reached English as gernet, meaning dark red, through Old French from Latin granatus, from granum, a grain or seed, perhaps in reference to the pomegranate, whose red seed coats look like some garnet crystals. Garnet forms mostly in metamorphic rocks such as gneiss and schist, less often in igneous ones, and has been worked as both gem and abrasive since the Bronze Age; red garnets set in gold cells were the commonest gems of the late Roman world and of Anglo-Saxon pieces like those from Sutton Hoo. Cunningham gives it to Mars and to fire, and uses it for healing, protection and strength: worn for endurance and extra energy in ritual, as a guard against thieves, and once exchanged by parting friends so that they would meet again. Hall calls it an energising, cleansing and purifying stone that inspires love and devotion, brings courage and hope in a crisis and lends self-confidence.