LeAnn Baker of Worland, Wyoming, was on her way to do chores at her horse corral when she looked down and found a rock that caught her attention. It was laying among the crushed rock gravel and looked like it had a hole punched right through it.
“I know nothing about rocks,” Baker said. “It looks like maybe a sandstone type of rock, but it's really smooth with this perfect hole in the center.”
She couldn’t see any water damage around the hole or other erosion and her curiosity was piqued.
Google Said It Was Magic
She put it in front of Google Lens and was told by the search engine that it was a magical hag stone.
According to rockhounding.org, these hag stones, also known as witch stones, adder stones, hag rocks, holey stones, or Odin stones, are shrouded in myth. The name "hag stone" is derived from the belief that these stones could protect against hags or witches.
In many cultures around the world, these stones are used as talismans to ward off evil spirits, witches, and negative energy. Some even believe that if you look through the hole of a hag stone, you will see into the spirit world and see the supernatural beings that exist around you.
In the British Isles, the stones were called “adder stones” and believed to have been created by snakes. Thus, they were used as charms to cure snakebites and other ailments.
In Scandinavian countries, hag stones were linked to Odin, the god of wisdom and magic. They were believed to enhance psychic abilities and offer protection from harm.
In Mediterranean cultures, hag stones are sometimes hung in homes or around the neck to protect against the evil eye.
Not completely convinced that she had a magic stone, Baker posted it to her Facebook page and had a few people also google it and say that it came back as a hag stone.
LeAnn Baker marked the spot she found her interesting holey rock with an X. Google told her it was magic but a local archaeologist said it may have been used instead to make cordage by local Indian tribes. (Courtesy: LeAnn Baker) 
When LeAnn Baker went to her corral, she made the unexpected discovery of a rock with a hole in it. She went to Facebook for answers and was told it was either a magic hag stone or a spindle whorl, used to make cord by the local Indian tribes. (Courtesy Photo) 
The holey rock LeAnn Baker discovered was mixed in with her gravel which she believes was sourced locally, from either Washakie or Hot Springs County. (LeAnn Baker) 
LeAnn Baker is keeping the holey rock displayed on her coffee table and is thinking about making it into a necklace. (Courtesy Photo)
Could Be A Tool
Baker then reached out to Mike Bies, a local archeologist. He had never heard of a hag stone but said that her holey rock could be a spindle whorl. This is an ancient tool used worldwide, mainly by women.
“He said that they turned a stick in this rock and they made these threads,” Baker said.
Although he only examined the photograph, Bies said that Baker’s rock appears to be a spindle whorl which uses a technique similar to the spinning wheel. In the beginning, our ancestors would make thread by twisting plant fibers with their fingers and this rock spindle would be the next step in the evolution of thread making.
“They took a perforated rock, whether they just found it or made it themselves, and pushed the fibers into it to get it started,” Bies explained. “Then they just kept feeding more into it and spinning the rock.”
They would spin the bundle of raw fiber until they had a twisted fiber. They could then weave this stronger thread, or cordage, into things they needed like sandals or nets.
“It was very early technology that people coming here brought into the region,” Bies said.
The best documented early cordage that he is aware of was from a village in what is now Siberia, dating back approximately 27,000 years ago.
The National Museum of the American Indian has an example of the spindle whorl on display. They are more commonly found in the southwest but were also brought into Wyoming to make cordage out of sagebrush and other plants. (LeAnn Baker) 
Spindle whorls have been used all over the world for over 24,000 years to make thread from various materials. This is an example from Central America. Note the rock being used to spin the stick. (Courtesy Photo)
Wyoming Spindle Whorls
Since Baker found her rock in gravel, the exact source is unknown. Her guess is that the gravel was probably dug from a pit nearby, either in Washakie or Hot Springs County.
In Wyoming, these spindle whorls are not as common as in the southwest where the culture focused more on the art of textiles and had access to wool for their thread. In this region, your cordage was most likely made from plant materials such as sagebrush bark and the finer thread from milkweed stems and paintbrush.
“A lot of the nets that have been found here in Wyoming were made out of sagebrush fiber,” Bies said. “We have found sandals that were woven out of sagebrush.”
The finer quality and more complex threads would most likely have been part of the women's toolkit which included needles, awls and digging sticks.
The spindle whorls would also pre-date the horse and predominately came from Shoshone and Ute tribes that were in the region at the time.
Made By Man Or Nature
There are ways to tell if the hole in a rock is formed from nature or was man made. According to Bies, if it was man made, the hole would be conical shaped with an inverted cone from both sides.
If nature made, the hole could be the result of concretions forming around reeds or other vegetation growing up in the water. These holes are uniform in diameter, and they don't look like they were made by perforating the rock.
Bies has never found a spindle whorl in a cultural context in Wyoming. Almost all of the ones that he has seen are like Baker’s and were either surface finds or brought in by collectors.
He also said that in Wyoming the focus of study has been on big game hunting in the excavations so that lot of the archaeological materials that were recovered that didn't involve hunting, were never fully analyzed.
“There's a lot of work yet to be done with the collections here in Wyoming,” Bies said. “Cordage is one of the things that's been fairly well ignored because they are just not as sexy as a sharp rock.”
As for Baker, she is pleased with her holey rock whether it turns out to be a hag stone or a spindle whorl.
“If it's really magic,” she mused, “shouldn't it just bring me all kinds of good luck and money and handsome men and all that?”
