Many cultures see the lizard as symbolic. The Bantu believe if you dream of a lizard it is the foretelling of the birth of a male child. The Ancient Egyptians used a lizard in their hieroglyphics to depict ‘plentiful’. In a Cameroon myth the lizard told mankind there is no life after death. In Christianity they are a symbol of contemplation. St Gregory the Great thought the lizard was the soul seeking stillness and enlightenment while a bird with its wings could fly up to heaven.
My lizard is slightly unusual in that the paste stones along his back are blue. It is more common to see all clear or with a line of green paste. The Victorians with their passion for the unusual had a craze for insect, animal and reptile brooches. In ‘Starting to Collect Antique Jewellery’ by John Benjamin (page 94) from the BBC Antiques Roadshow, there is a good display of the variety – a fox, a snail, a tortoise, a bird, several bugs, bees & moth and two lizards.