silicates
Staurolite
Fe2+2Al9Si4O23(OH)
- Also known as
- fairy crossfairy stonecross stone
- Crystal system
- monoclinic
- Hardness
- 7–7.5 on the Mohs scale
- Lustre
- vitreous
- Colour
- Dark reddish brown to black
- Where it forms
- In medium-grade metamorphic rocks, and it frequently forms twinned crystals that intersect at sixty or ninety degrees, producing a natural cross.
- Chiefly from
- Fannin County, Georgia, United StatesBrittany, FranceSwitzerlandRussia
Why it is that colour
Iron.
Safety
Safe to handle.
Where it comes from
Georgia’s Fannin County is the classic locality and collecting there is now largely restricted. Enormous numbers of imitation fairy crosses, moulded from resin or carved, are sold to tourists.
Historical use
An index mineral for metamorphic grade, like garnet. The staurolite zone marks a particular band of temperature and pressure in a metamorphic sequence.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. That a stone was used for something establishes that people used it, not that it worked.
What is attributed to it, and since when
The name is from the Greek for cross. Appalachian folk tradition holds that the crosses are the tears of fairies who wept at the crucifixion, and the stones were carried as charms; Theodore Roosevelt reputedly carried one. The tradition is documented and regional. Its wider metaphysical use is modern.
Described, not endorsed. Dating a claim is not the same as assessing it — but an association that first appears in a book published in 1985 is not an ancient inheritance, whatever the label says. A sincere account of feeling better is compatible with the stone doing nothing — see the placebo effect.
Sold as this, but not
Worth knowing
Staurolite crosses are twins — two crystals grown together in a fixed geometric relationship, sharing part of their lattice. Twinning is common in minerals and usually produces re-entrant angles or mirrored forms; here it produces two prisms crossing at close to ninety degrees, which looks unmistakably like a crucifix.
Both this and chiastolite give the same lesson from different mechanisms. Crystals produce cross-shaped forms for reasons entirely internal to crystallography, in several unrelated minerals, and any culture with a cross in its symbolic vocabulary will find them meaningful. The stone is doing geometry. The meaning is being supplied.
Identity checked against IMA-CNMNC master list, June 2025.