We welcome the first day of March here at Burial Day Books! We will also be posting our newest short story soon! We are thrilled and would just like to remind you all to add us on Facebook. We need more friends. Please add us. We don’t bite. We promise. Of course, there is always Twitter as well if you would like to follow us there, from a safer distance.
We wanted to speak to you briefly about this month as we mourn…well, so many as that is what we do. Working and living among the dead is a fascinating profession. This is a darkly world where surprisingly each day something new is learned. Just today a woman delivered a package of clothing and accessories she would like her dear aunt dressed with for the funeral. In the box we found a lovely ring with a dark stone embedded with red flakes. Upon researching we learned that this lovely gem is a mineral called a heliotrope, otherwise known as a bloodstone – the birthstone of March.
The bloodstone is from the chalcedony family, a class of stones composed of quartz and moganite. The red inclusions in the stone do stunningly appear to look much like drops of blood. You should really see one, they are quite lovely. The name heliotrope also refers to the color violet. We did also learn that heliotrope is one of the half-mourning colors worn by the Victorians during their last stage of mourning. We are clearly interested in superstition as well and did discover that there is a superstition that chalcedony stones are believed to hold magical properties. They are believed to ward away evil spirits.
Going back now to the actual month, there is a superstition that the first three days of March are considered unlucky and these days are often called “blind days.” So for these next couple of days do take caution.
This month we hope you will enjoy our new short story that we will be posting soon. We are hard at work on more stories, thrilling, terrifying little dark tales as well as our first novel.
We will write more Sunday. Embrace heliotropes and bloodstones, but do take caution –heliotropes do ward away evil spirits and while we are not necessarily evil we are slightly wicked. Don’t ward us away. Embrace us!
-Gravedigger
