Bezoar!!!!!!

[Katherine Coble]

No: HPFGUIDX 139792

Sorry I've been out of the posting game for so long, but I've been 
trying to spend a few months away from HP to just regain some 
perspective.

In research for my work, I've been reading a book called "The Strange 
Case Of The Walking Corpse" by Nancy Butcher.  It's a factual book that 
details strange diseases and folk remedies throughout the history of 
medicine.

So there I sit happily reading along about men who have periods, women 
with 10 breasts and other such stuff when I get to this section(pages 
54-55):

THE MAGIC OF BEZOAR

Bezoar is a sort of reddish stone, although 'stone' is a misnomer.  
Bezoar is in actuality a rock-hard hairball  or gallstone from the 
stomach of an animal such as a goat or llama and sometimes, a human.  
Derived from two Persian words meaning "against" and "poison", bezaor 
was believed from medieval times on to be a powerful antidote to 
poisoning....

[lots more stuff about where you get bezoar and how you take it... then 
the truly interesting part]

One strange legend attributes the powers of bezoar to Oriental stags.   
When the stags reached a certain age, they were said to eat serpents in 
order to regain their youth.  But in consuming the serpents, the stags 
consumed their venom as well.  To detoxify quickly, the stags ran into 
a stream while keeping their heads above water.  This action somehow 
caused fluid to be distilled from their eyes, and the fluid was then 
transformed into a bezoar by the heat of the sun.


------

I don't know about any of you, but my Pottermania Antennae sprang to 
full alert when I read that.

Stags...serpents...eyes....renewed youth....generation of a new healing 
stone through the magic of tears....

What do you think?!  I personally think that we may see more of this 
legend in book 7.

Katherine