Salt! It’s everywhere. Literally, it’s all around my house, keeping the ice at bay during the snowstorms — but it’s many other places too: grumpy attitudes on the internet, trendy spice mixes, witchy spells, expertly-maintained marine aquariums, Utah’s great lake, you name it. And if you happen to be a 12th century alchemist, salt is also item number three on your list of “Three Principal Substances.”
On previous Fridays I wrote about the other two substances, mercury and sulfur. Mercury, if you recall, represented liquid aspects of metals. Sulfur represented fire and burning. ‘Salt’ to the early alchemists didn’t necessary mean NaCl; instead, it represented the solid, earthlike qualities of metals. (Salt of the earth, anyone?) As an example, even in the 17th and 18th centuries, alchemists and physicians prescribed “the salts of Mars,” which were in fact a form of iron.
Unlike mercury and sulfur, salt doesn’t have a neat moniker (e.g. “the red king,” from last week) or planetary association. The ancient Roman name for it, “sal,” does echo the name for the Roman goddess Salus, who oversaw health. But most of the stories and meanings pinned to salt don’t from from alchemy or science — instead, they’re popular folklore. I remember poring over Russian fairy tales in which salt was worth its weight in gold, and there are several versions of stories explaining “why the sea is salty” (check the Resources section at the end for links!). The historic value of salt is also behind common words and sayings like “salary” or “worth his/her salt.” This notoriety is due to the fact that salt, in its use as a food preservative and seasoning, was much more widely traded than its alchemical cousins.
So there you have it — the three principal substances of alchemy in the 12th century (and beyond): mercury, sulfur, and salt. And because we know all about those, we can now start work on the Philosopher’s Stone, which was thought to be a combination of all three! 🙂
Selected Resources
Ashliman, D. L. “Folktale Archive: Why the Sea is Salty.” https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0565.html (I love this site!)
“Properties of Salt.” Salt Association. https://www.saltassociation.co.uk/education/properties-of-salt/
Thompson, C. J. S. Alchemy and Alchemists. Dover edition, 2002.
Time magazine. “A Brief History of Salt. https://time.com/3957460/a-brief-history-of-salt/