“On the 28th of August, 1812, these ceremonies were practised in the presence of three gentlemen, then and still unconvinced of the existence of any such power. The farmer had, at their request, civilly left his harvest, and repeated his practice for their satisfaction. He first held the rod over his own well, where it did not bend, in consequence, as he asserted, of the spring not being perennial. He then slowly walked forward with the rod of hazel held in his hands; at a particular spot, near his own dwelling, the forked end of the rod began to be agitated and droop downward; at length, as he proceeded, it became nearly or quite inverted. He then marked the spot, walked away, and, setting off in another direction, returned toward the same spot. When he arrived near it, the end of the rod again began to droop, and, at the spot, was, as before, inverted. When he was proceeding, the persons present carefully watched his hands, but could not discern any motion in either, or any other visible means by which the rod could be affected. One of them took the rod into his own hands, and, repeating the same practice over the same ground, the rod did not bend.
“Whether under the designated spot a spring exists or not was not examined; probably there may, quite apart from any virtue in the Baguette divinatoire.
“On several occasions the farmer has been requested to seek for water, and it has not only been found, but nearly at the depth which he indicated. He is a man of good character, of simple manners, obliging and communicative. Being in easy circumstances, he exercises his art without reward. The priest had communicated some rules, to enable him to judge of the exact distance of the water from the surface. These, he observes, proved fallacious, and the only guide he has for judging of the depth of the water, is his observation of the distance between the spot at which the forked end of the rod begins to be agitated, and that at which, when he arrives, the rod becomes wholly inverted.”
It will be observed that Quayle does not assert that he himself saw the farmer practise his art, but merely that it had been witnessed by three gentlemen in 1812. The copy of Quayle’s work, however, from which the extract was made, contains a very interesting marginal note in pencil, in the handwriting of a former owner of the book, Peter Le Pelley, Esq., Seigneur of Sark, who was, unfortunately, drowned by the capsizing of a boat in which he was crossing from that island to Guernsey in March, 1839. He says:—
“I have seen it practised by Mr. Moullin, of Le Ponchez, at Sark and Brechou; and at Brechou the forked stick became so inverted that it split at the fork. He did it in my presence on gold, silver, and water, and the rod inverted over them. He first rubbed his hands with the substance to be sought for, and, if water, dipped his hands in it, and held his two thumbs on the extremity of the forks. That there is a virtue in the using of the Baguette divinatoire is incontestable, the reason I deem unknown. May not electricity or magnetism be concerned in it? It turned in the hands of some Sarkmen who previously were ignorant of possessing that power. Ergo it is independent of the will.
“On Mr. Moullin’s indication, who told me I should find water at twenty to twenty-two feet at Brechou, I had a well dug. The men blasted all the way through the solid rock without finding any water, and at nineteen to twenty feet, on making a hole with a jumper, the water sprang up and filled the well. Mr. Moullin found a ring that had been lost by means of the Baguette divinatoire.”
Brechou, mentioned in this note, is a small islet or dependency of Sark, more generally known by the name of l’Ile des Marchants, a name it derived from some former proprietors, members of the ancient Guernsey family of Le Marchant; and for those who are unacquainted with the art of quarrying, it may not be amiss to explain that a “jumper” is an iron tool with which holes are bored in the rock for the purpose of blasting it with gunpowder, and so facilitating its removal piecemeal.
The writer of the present compilation had an opportunity of witnessing experiments with the divining rod, when attending, in September, 1875, at Guingamp, in Brittany, a meeting of the “Association Bretonne,” a combination of the Agricultural and Archæological Societies of that Province. The place where the experiments were made was a piece of grass-land at the head of a small valley, and the course of an underground stream seemed to be traced by the deflections of the rod, until it pointed almost perpendicularly downwards over a certain spot in the garden of a neighbouring château, where, we were told, there was no doubt a strong spring would be found at no great distance from the surface, which, taking into consideration the nature of the locality, seemed highly probable. It is certain that in the hands of some who had never seen the experiment performed before, and who at first professed incredulity, the rod appeared ready to twist itself out of their grasp as soon as they drew near to the place where water was supposed to be, while with others, who were disposed to believe only the evidence of what they witnessed with their own eyes, the mysterious twig remained perfectly still. No attempt at deceit could be detected. The persons who made the experiment were gentlemen, and men of education, although, as Bretons, not perhaps quite free from that tinge of superstitious feeling which is so characteristic of all Celtic nations. The writer is bound to add that, neither in his own hands, nor in those of his companion and fellow countryman, was the slightest effect produced, although they were carefully instructed how to hold the rod, and they went over the very same ground where, in the hands of others, the rod had been visibly affected.