.' By the Germans it was called the 'wishing
rod,' or 'wishing thorn,' which points to the fact that it was often
cut from the blackthorn or sloe. It was supposed that the person who
could use the magic rod most successfully was the seventh son of a
seventh son, if such a person could be found. The wand, too, should not
be cut from very old wood, but it must be more than a year old. Some
folk said that the twig chosen to make this rod ought to be one upon
which the sun shone both in the morning and afternoon. Again, the magic
rod was not simply a straight piece of wood; it had to be of a
particular shape--that of the letter Y. When using it, the hands grasped
the two arms, so that the unforked part pointed outwards. In houses
about the West of England, people will show visitors magic or divining
rods, cut many years ago, and now carefully kept as memorials of the
past.

These rods had various uses. They were not only supposed to show where
metal was hidden, or springs of water might be found, but one brought to
a person ill of fever might cure him, though he had to pay whatever was
asked for it, and make no objection to the price. In some countries, men
believed that a magic rod might be got to point the direction in which a
lost person had gone.

The Chinese, ages before the Westerns knew them, had their magic rods,
and generally cut them from fruit-trees, the peach being often chosen.
But in Europe, the hazel or cob-nut tree stands at the head of the list
of the trees favoured. German farmers formerly cut a hazel rod in
spring, and when the first thunder-shower came, they waved it over the
corn that was stored up, believing that this would make it keep sound
till it was wanted. Next to the hazel in importance was the rowan or
mountain ash, a tree always associated with the pixies and fairies;
magic rods were frequently made from it, and also little crosses, which,
if put over the door, were supposed to bring good fortune into a house.
Another tree furnishing such rods was the willow, and another was the
apple; one carefully avoided was the elder.

J. R. S. C.

OUR PUSS.

She came with the evening shades,
At the close of a winter day,
And her manner implied,
As she trotted inside,
'I am here, and have come to stay.'

Where she came from nobody knows,
And no one has claimed her yet;
But she made so free,
It was easy to see
That she had b