CHAPTER XIII.
THE DIVINING OR "WISH"-ROD, AND SUPERSTITIONS RESPECTING TREES AND PLANTS.
Some sorcerers do boast they have a rod
Gather'd with vowes and sacrifice,
And (borne about) will strangely nod
To hidden treasure, where it lies;
Mankind is (sure) that rod divine,
For to the wealthiest ever they incline!
S. Sheppard, 1651.
Faith in the power of the "wish" or "divining rod" is by no means extinct in the North of England. In modern times it is chiefly believed to be potent in the detection of metallic veins, hidden treasure, or subterranean springs of water. Our ancestors, however, held that this mystic instrument was endowed with the faculty of bringing "luck" or good fortune to its possessor, and of causing his slightest wish or desire to receive fulfilment. I have a faint recollection of a story relative to the use of the divining rod, with the view to ascertain the locality of the "buried treasure," since discovered, in the valley of the Ribble, near Preston, and now known as the celebrated "Cuerdale hoard." This treasure, in all human probability, was consigned to the earth immediately after the famous battle of Brunanburh, in the earlier portion of the tenth century. Although it remained undisturbed about nine hundred years, a tradition survived, which asserted that the place of the deposit could be seen from the promontory overlooking the valley on which Walton, or "Law," Church is situated. The late Mr. B. F. Allen, of Preston, remembered a farmer ploughing deeply the whole of an extensive field in the neighbourhood, in the hope of discovering the long-lost treasure, some professor of the art of divination by the "wish-rod" having pronounced in favour of the probability of a successful result. Singularly enough, even after the accidental discovery of the treasure chest of the days of Athelstan, the country people of the neighbourhood still nursed the memory of the tradition with great fondness, firmly believing that the "find" referred to was but a foretaste of what was to come. I was forcibly struck with the tenacity of this species of tradition, when engaged digging on the site of the Roman station at the junction of the Darwen and the Ribble, in 1855. The turning up of a few scattered brass coins of the higher empire, led to a rumour that we had come upon "th' buried goud" at last, and caused us some inconvenience. The Cuerdale hoard, it must be remembered, consisted entirely of coins, marks, and bracelets and other ornaments in silver. Mr. Martland, who farmed the land at the time, told me some curious stories respecting this mound at Walton-le-Dale, which would indicate that treasure-seekers had been more than once practising their vocation in the neighbourhood. Some thirteen or fourteen years previously, a hole nine or ten feet long was dug in one night by some unknown persons. A silver coin (most probably Roman) was found on the filling up of the trench. Mr. Martland likewise remembered hearing of a somewhat similar hole having been excavated between forty or fifty years previously, under equally mysterious circumstances, and not far from the same spot. The locality was watched every evening for a fortnight, before the hole was filled up, with the view to ascertain whether the midnight excavators would resume their labours. Nothing was discovered which either identified the parties or explained their object. The general impression, however, was that they were treasure hunters, and that they had acted under some magical or supernatural direction.
In a manuscript of the early part of the seventeenth century, by John Bell, the necessary formulæ for the procuration and preparation of the divining rod are thus described:—
"When you find in the wood or elsewhere, on old walls or on high hills or rocks, a rowan which has grown out of a berry let fall from a bird's bill, you must go at twilight in the evening of the third day after our Lady's day, and either uproot or break off the said rod or tree; but you must take care that neither iron or steel come nigh it, and that it do not fall to the ground on the way home. Then place the rod under the roof, at a spot under which you have laid sundry metals, and in a short time you will see with astonishment how the rod gradually bends under the roof towards the metals. When the rod has remained fourteen days or more in the same place, you take a knife or an awl which has been stroked with a magnet, and previously stuck through a great Frögroda (?), slit the bark on all sides, and pour or drop in cock's blood, especially such as is drawn from the comb of a cock of one colour; and when this blood has dried the rod is ready, and gives manifest proof of the efficacy of its wondrous nature."
The same writer referring to the subject of rabdomanteia or rod divination, relates the following, on the authority of Theophylact:—"They set up two staffs, and having whispered some verses and incantations, the staffs fell by the operations of dæmons. Then they considered which way each of them fell, forward or backward, to the right or left hand, and agreeably gave responses, having made use of the fall of their staffs for their signs."
This superstition appears to have been very prevalent in the earliest times. The divination of the Chaldeans has passed into a proverb. Ezekiel refers to it, and Hosea denounces the Jews for their faith in such heathen ceremonies. He exclaims—"My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them." It was practised by the Alani, according to Herodotus, and we have the authority of Tacitus for the estimation in which it was held by the ancient Germanic tribes.