wood, and adds that divination by wands was known and practised in
Babylon, "and that this was even the most ancient mode of divination
used in the time of the Accadians." Among the Hindus, even in the Vedic
period, magic wands were in use, and the practice still survives in China,
where the peach-tree is in demand. Tracing its antecedent history in this
country, it appears that the Druids were in the habit of cutting their
divining-rods from the apple-tree; and various notices of this once
popular fallacy occur from time to time, in the literature of bygone years.
The hazel was formerly famous for its powers of discernment, and it
is still held in repute by the Italians. Occasionally, too, as already
noticed, the divining-rod was employed for the purpose of detecting the
locality of water, as is still the case in Wiltshire. An interesting case was
quoted some years ago in the Quarterly Review (xxii. 273). A certain
Lady N----is here stated to have convinced Dr. Hutton of her possession
of this remarkable gift, and by means of it to have indicated to him the
existence of a spring of water in one of his fields adjoining the Woolwich
College, which, in consequence of the discovery, he was enabled to sell
to the college at a higher price. This power Lady N----repeatedly
exhibited before credible witnesses, and the Quarterly Review of that
day considered the fact indisputable. The divining-rod has long been in
repute among Cornish miners, and Pryce, in his "Mineralogia
Cornubiensis," says that many mines have been discovered by this
means; but, after giving a minute account of cutting, tying, and using it,
he rejects it, because, "Cornwall is so plentifully stored with tin and
copper lodes, that some accident every week discovers to us a fresh
vein."
Billingsley, in his "Agricultural Survey of the County of Cornwall,"
published in the year 1797, speaks of the belief of the Mendip miners in
the efficacy of the mystic rod:--"The general method of discovering the
situation and direction of those seams of ore (which lie at various depths,
from five to twenty fathoms, in a chasm between two inches of solid
rock) is by the help of the divining-rod, vulgarly called josing; and a
variety of strong testimonies are adduced in supporting this doctrine. So
confident are the common miners of the efficacy, that they scarcely ever
sink a shaft but by its direction; and those who are dexterous in the use
of it, will mark on the surface the course and breadth of the vein; and
after that, with the assistance of the rod, will follow the same course
twenty times following blindfolded." Anecdotes of the kind are very
numerous, for there are few subjects in folk-lore concerning which more
has been written than on the divining-rod, one of the most exhaustive
being that of Mr. Baring-Gould in his "Curious Myths of the Middle
Ages." The literature, too, of the past is rich in allusions to this piece of
superstition, and Swift in his "Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician's Rod"
(1710) thus refers to it:--
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