Divining-rod synonyms

After a cold and snowy night it needed a divining-rod to find it.

Thus the Zulu says to the ancestral ghost, "Help me or you will feed on nettles"; whilst the still more primitive Australian exclaims to the "dead hand" that he carries about with him as a kind of divining-rod, "Guide me aright, or I throw you to the dogs."

These more specialized actions are most typically seen in the Divining Rod (q.v.; see also Table-Turning), which indicates the presence of water and is used among the uncivilized to trace criminals.

By Vallemont, who wrote towards the end of the 17th century, the divining-rod of hazel, or "baguette divinatoire," is described as instrumental in the pursuit of criminals.

The Jesuit Vaniere, who flourished in the early part of the 18th century, in the Praedium rusticum (pp. 12, 13, new ed., Toulouse, 1742) amusingly relates the manner in which he exposed the chicanery of one who pretended by the aid of a hazel divining-rod to point out hidden water-courses and gold.