The Luck of Edenhall

This glass was made in Syria in the thirteenth century and is in the V&A museum. It was owned for many years by the Musgrave family of Edenhall, Cumbria and family myth described it as a cup left behind by fairies attached with the curse that if it were ever broken, the luck of Edenhall would be destroyed. The imagined breaking of the glass was thus described by Longfellow:

As the goblet ringing flies apart,
Suddenly cracks the vaulted hall;
And through the rift the wild flames start;
The guests in dust are scattered all,
With the breaking Luck of Edenhall!
In storms the foe with fire and sword;
He in the night has scaled the wall,
Slain by the sword lies the youthful Lord,
But holds in his hand the crystal tall,
The shattered Luck of Edenhall.