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 to 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 baptised), 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 purpose