THE DIVINING ROD.
There is something remarkable, and not flattering to human sagacity, in
the periodical resurrection of superstitions. Houses, for example, go on
being 'haunted' in country districts, and no educated man notices the
circumstance. Then comes a case like that of the Drummer of Tedworth, or
the Cock Lane Ghost, and society is deeply moved, philosophers plunge
into controversy, and he who grubs among the dusty tracts of the past
finds a world of fugitive literature on forgotten bogies. Chairs move
untouched by human hands, and tables walk about in lonely castles of
Savoy, and no one marks them, till a day comes when the furniture of some
American cottage is similarly afflicted, and then a shoddy new religion
is based on the phenomenon. The latest revival among old beliefs is
faith in the divining rod. 'Our liberal shepherds give it a shorter
name,' and so do our conservative peasants, calling the 'rod of Jacob'
the 'twig.' To 'work the twig' is rural English for the craft of
Dousterswivel in the 'Antiquary,' and perhaps from this comes our slang
expression to 'twig,' or divine, the hidden meaning of another. Recent
correspondence in the newspapers has proved that, whatever may be the
truth about the 'twig,' belief in its powers is still very prevalent. Respectable people are not ashamed to bear signed witness of its miraculous powers of detecting springs of water and secret mines. It is habitually used by the miners in the Mendips, as Mr. Woodward found ten years ago; and forked hazel divining rods from the Mendips are a recognised part of ethnological collections. There are two ways of investigating the facts or fancies about the rod. One is to examine it in its actual operation—a task of considerable labour, which will doubtless be undertaken by the Society for Psychical Research; the other, and easier, way is to study the appearances of the divining wand in history, and that is what we propose to do in this article.
When a superstition or belief is widely spread in Europe, as the
faith in the divining rod certainly is (in Germany rods are hidden under
babies' clothes when they are baptized), we naturally expect to
find traces of it in ancient times and among savages all over the modern
world. We have already examined, in 'The Bull-Roarer,'
a very similar example. We saw that there is a magical instrument—a
small fish-shaped piece of thin flat wood tied to a thong—which, when whirled in the air, produces a strange noise, a compound of roar and buzz. This instrument is sacred among the natives of Australia, where it is used to call together the men, and to frighten away the women from the religious mysteries of the males. The same instrument is employed for similar purposes in New Mexico, and in South Africa and New Zealand—parts of the world very widely distant from each other, and inhabited by very diverse races. It has also been lately discovered that the Greeks used this toy, which they called ρομβος, in the Mysteries of Dionysus, and possibly it may be identical with the mystica vannus Iacchi (Virgil, 'Georgics,' i. 166). The conclusion drawn by the ethnologist is that this object, called turndun by the Australians, is a very early savage invention, probably discovered and applied to religious purposes in various separate centres, and retained from the age of savagery in the mystic rites of Greeks and perhaps of Romans. Well, do we find anything analogous in the case of the divining rod?
Future researches may increase our knowledge, but at present little
or nothing is known of the divining rod in classical ages, and not very
much (though that little is significant) among uncivilised races. It is true that in all countries rods or wands, the Latin virga, have a magical power. Virgil obtained his mediæval repute as a wizard because his name was erroneously connected with virgula, the magic wand. But we do not actually know that the ancient wand of the enchantress Circe, in Homer, or the wand of Hermes, was used, like the divining rod, to indicate the whereabouts of hidden wealth or water. In the Homeric hymn to Hermes (line 529), Apollo thus describes the caduceus, or wand of Hermes: 'Thereafter will I give thee a lovely wand of wealth and riches, a golden wand with three leaves, which shall keep thee ever unharmed.' In later art this wand, or caduceus, is usually entwined with serpents; but on one vase, at least, the wand of Hermes is simply the forked twig of our rustic miners and water-finders. The same form is found on an engraved Etruscan mirror.