Agate was very popular with the ancient greeks and romans, as well as ancient chinese. The name comes from the greek word onux, which means fingernail. The story is that cupid cut the divine fingernails of venus while she was sleeping. He left the clippings scattered on the sand and the fates turned them into stone so that no part of venus' heavenly body would ever perish.

Labradorite is truly a magical semi-precious stone whose beauty is not fully noticed and may be overlooked if not viewed from the proper position. It can produce a luminescent play of light across cleavage planes and in sliced sections called labradorescence. The usually intense colors range from the typical blues and violets through greens, yellows and oranges.
According to an eskimo legend, the northern lights were once imprisoned in the rocks along the coast of labrador, and then a wandering eskimo warrior found them and freed most of the lights with a mighty blow of his spear. Some of the lights were still trapped within the stone however, and thus we have today the beautiful mineral known as labradorite. Traditionally, labradorite is thought to bring good luck.