The Spooky Story Of The Cursed Amethyst

A precious stone has gone on show at London's Natural History Museum with a history that sounds very Scooby Doo-ish to us. See what you think...

See the big purple stone in the middle of the picture? That's the Heron-Allen amethyst.

Back in Victorian times (1855 to be exact) the stone was stolen from India during a mutiny. It was brought back to England by a cavalry officer - that's when the trouble started.

The officer mysteriously got very ill and lost all of his money. He then passed the stone on to his son who also suffered lots of bad luck. The son gave the jewel to a friend who ended up killing himself... and leaving the stone in his will to the officer's son.

Bet he couldn't believe his bad luck, he just couldn't get rid of it! The officer's son tried again. In 1890 he gave the stone to a chap called Edward Heron-Allen, a researcher at the Natural History Museum.

Ed's luck took a turn for the worse too and having discovered the stone's unpleasant history he threw it into Regent's Canal.

In a truly spooky twist the jewel was dredged up, sold to a dealer and returned to him three months later!

This was getting ridiculous. Heron-Allen packed it into seven boxes and gave it to his bank to keep locked away until three years after his death.

Many years later his daughter donated it to the museum, along with a letter from Heron-Allen warning everyone not to touch the stone he called 'cursed and stained with blood'.

So... it's now on show for all of us to see. We haven't heard of any adverse effects yet (hopefully it's in a glass case!). Let's hope Scooby and Shaggy are loitering in the gallery, keeping an eye out for any trouble.

The amethyst is on show in a brand new gallery at the museum called The Vault. As well as this spooky stone you can see a Martian meteorite, one of the biggest emeralds in the world and lots more. If you visit let us know how you fare.