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.

Sir Henry Ellis refers to an effort by miners to discover a metallic lode, by means of the divining rod, as recently as 1842. He thus describes the experiment :-" The method of procedure was to cut the twig of a hazel or an apple tree, of twelve months' growth, into a forked shape, and to hold this by both hands in a peculiar way, walking across the land until the twig bent, which was taken as an indication of the locality of a lode. The person who generally practices this divination boasts himself to be the seventh son of a seventh son. The twig of hazel bends in his hands to the conviction of the miners that ore is present; but then the peculiar manner in which the twig is held, bringing muscular action to bear upon it, accounts for its gradual deflection, and the circumstance of the strata walked over always containing ore, gives a further credit to the process of divination.”

The following curious anecdote, referring to this subject, appears in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1752:-" M. Linnæus, when he was upon his voyage to Scania, hearing his secretary highly extol the virtues of his divining wand, was willing to convince him of its insufficiency, and for that purpose concealed a purse of one hundred ducats under a ranunculus which grew by itself in a meadow, and bid the secretary find it if he could. The wand discovered nothing, and M. Linnæus's mark was soon trampled down by the company who were present; so that when M. Linnæus went to finish the experiment by fetching the gold himself, he was utterly at a loss where to seek it. The man with the wand assisted him, and pronounced it could not lie the way they were going, but quite the contrary, so pursued the direction of his wand, and actually dug out the gold. M. Linnæus

adds that such another experiment would be sufficient to make a proselyte of him." Lilly relates an effort of his to discover hidden treasure by the divining rod. He, however, frankly confesses that he failed in his object.

The divining rod in form resembled the letter Y, and, independently of its other magical qualities, owed some of its supposed power to its form and the number of its limbs. The peculiar and regular equiangular form of the branches of the mistletoe, doubtless, had much influence in its selection as a mystical plant endowed with supernatural properties. The number three, and its multiple nine, together with the mystic Abracadabra, the double triangle of the Gnostics, have been regarded from the most remote ages as of mystical import. The association of the "seventh son of a seventh son" (another mystic number) with the procedure, is likewise indicative of a mathematical element at the root of this superstition.

Mr. Gladstone, in his "Juventus Mundi," says,-" With respect to the Trident" (of Poseidon or Neptune), "an instrument so unsuited to water, it appears evidently to point to some tradition of a Trinity, such as may still be found in various forms of Eastern religion, other than the Hebrew. It may have proceeded, among the Phoenicians, from the common source of an older tradition; and this seems more probable than its direct derivation from the Hebrews, with whom, however, we know that the Phoenicians had intercourse."

The horseshoe, which is so frequently seen nailed to stable and shippon doors, as a charm against the machinations of witches, is said to owe its virtue chiefly to its shape. Any other object presenting two points or forks, even the spreading out of the two fore-fingers, is said to possess similar occult power, though not in so high a degree as the rowan wish-rod. In Spain and Italy forked pieces of coral are in high repute as witch scarers. A crescent formed of two boar's tusks is frequently appended to the necks of mules, to protect the animals from witchcraft. The boar's tusk I have previously shown to be an Aryan lightning emblem.

Kelly is of opinion that the mandrake, on account of its form and supposed lightning origin, possessed, in common with the wish-rod, the power of conferring good fortune on its possessor. The root of the mandrake is believed to bear some resemblance to a human being, and appears to have been used in England by sorcerers as an image of the victim operated upon, as well as figures made of clay or wax. In his "Art of Simpling," Coles says that witches "take likewise the roots of the mandrake, according to some, or, as I rather suppose,

the roots of briony, which simple folke take for the true mandrake, and make thereof an ugly image, by which they represent the person on whom they intend to exercise their witchcraft." He adds"Some plants have roots with a number of threads, like beards, as mandrakes, whereof witches and imposters make an ugly image, giving it the form of a face at the top of the root, and leave those strings to make a broad beard down to the feet." Dr. Kuhn and others are of opinion that the form of the wish-rod originated in a somewhat similar idea; or rather that the two superstitions had, in this respect, a common origin. It appears that these rods are yet dressed like dolls in some parts of Germany, and that they are occasionally attached to the body of a child about to be christened. Schönwerth informs us that in the Oberpfalz the newly-cut wish-rod is formally baptised, and the sign of the cross made over it three times by the operator. Kelly adds-"This is not all. In every instance the divining or wish rod has a forked end. This is an essential point,

as all authorities agree in declaring. Now a forked rod (or a 'forked raddish') is the simplest possible image of the human figure."

The English mandrake, used by witches and treasure hunters, is, as Coles observes, the briony, the veritable atropa mandragora not being found in the northern portion of the continent of Europe. It flourishes luxuriantly in the Grecian islands. Mr. John Ingram, in his Flora Symbolica," says the mandragora is "the emblem of rarity." He adds,-" Amongst the Oriental races the mandrake, probably on account of its fœtid odour and venomous properties, is regarded with intense abhorrence; the Arabs, Richardson says, call it the devil's candle,' because of its shiny appearance in the night; a circumstance thus alluded to by Moore in his 'Lalla Rookh' ::

Such rank and deadly lustre dwells,

As in those hellish fires that light

The mandrake's charmed leaves at night.

"There is an old, deeply-rooted superstition connected with this ominous plant, which we have reason to believe is not yet altogether eradicated from the minds of the uneducated, that the mandrake grows up under the gallows, being nourished by the exhalations from executed criminals; and that when it is pulled out of the ground it utters lamentable cries, as if possessed of sensibility :

The phantom shapes - oh, touch them not

That appal the murderer's sight,

Lurk in the fleshy mandrake's stem,

That shrieks when pluck'd at night.

So says Moore in verse, only repeating what many have said gravely in prose.

"Another terrible quality imputed to this wretched plant was that the person pulling it out of the ground would be seriously injured by its pestilential effects, some even averring that death speedily resulted from them; in order therefore to guard against this danger, the surrounding soil was removed, and the plant fastened securely to a dog, so that when the animal was driven away he drew up the root, and paid the penalty of the deed."

Dr. Kuhn contends that this human form was given to the mandrake and the wish rod because both were believed to be of divine or supernatural origin, and represented a species of demi-god, of the lightning tribe. Kelly contends that "a comparison with ancient Hindoo usages fully confirms the truth of this conclusion. The human form is expressly attributed in the Rig Veda and other Sanscrit books to the pieces of asvattha wood used for kindling sacred fire-so many inches for the head and neck, so many for the upper and lower parts of the trunk, the thighs and legs respectively-and the operator is warned to be very careful where he churns, for perdition will issue from most parts of the arani, whereas he who churns in the right spot will obtain fruition of all his wishes; he will gain wealth, cattle, sons, heaven, long life, love, and good fortune. Evidéntly the tabular part or block of the chark is equivalent to the wish-rod, and the reason of this is that they are both embodiments of the lightning."

Doubtless, as has been contended by Dr. Kuhn and many others, the caduceus or rod of Hermes may be referred to a similar origin; that it is, in fact, but the Greek development of the original Aryan myth. The wands of conjurers, the batons of military commanders, and even the sceptres of monarchs, together with Neptune's trident and Jove's thundering implement, may without extravagance be assigned to a similar origin.

The divining rod was made either of hazel, the rowan or mountain ash, or some other of the European representatives of either the palasa tree, or the "imperial mimosa of the East." The story of the origin of these trees, as related in the Veda, is somewhat curious. It exhibits the root of the superstitious reverence, so common amongst all the Aryan tribes, in which certain trees and plants are held, and of the belief in their medical and magical properties. It appears that the demons had stolen the heavenly soma, or drink of the gods, and cellared it in some mythical rock or cloud. The falcon (a lightning

R

bird) undertook to restore to the thirsty deities their much prized liquor. The feathered hero triumphed, but he gained his honours at the expense of a claw and a plume, of which an arrow from one of "the enemy" deprived him during his retreat. Both fell to the earth and took root. From the feather sprung the parna or palasa tree, which possessed red sap and bore scarlet blossoms. From the claw a species of thorn was developed. This Dr. Kuhn contends is the Mimosa catechu, or the "imperial mimosa" referred to. The falcon being regarded as a lightning god, the plants and trees sprung from him were supposed to possess largely the divine attributes of their progenitor. The Aryan tribes, on migrating into distant lands, found, of course, that the botanical characteristics of their new homes differed from those pertaining to that they had left. They, therefore, selected what, to them, appeared the nearest representatives of the parna and the mimosa, and endowed them with their supernatural properties. Amongst the most reverenced in Europe were the fern, which appears to be but a modern form of the word parna; the mountain ash, or rowan; the hazel, and the black and white thorn, and the spring-wort or St. John's-wort. Kelly says:-"Among the many English names of the mountain ash are witchen tree, witch elm, witch hazel, witch wood; quicken tree, quick beam (quick-alive, beam, German baum-tree); roan tree, roun tree, rowan. These last three synonymes are from the Norse tongues, and denote, as Grimm conjectures, the runic or mysterious and magic character of the tree."

Several peculiarities of the mountain ash correspond with others which characterise the Hindoo palasa. Both bear red berries, and their leaves are profusely luxuriant. These characteristics are supposed to correspond to the blood shed by the falcon and the form of his lost feather. The spikes of the thorn, by a similar process of reasoning, are identified with the claw detached by the arrow of the pursuing demon.

The late Bishop Heber, referring to the mimosa of India, relates facts which clearly identify some of the superstitions of the East with others in Britain. He appears likewise to have anticipated that time would disclose their common origin. He says "Near Boitpoor, in Upper India, I passed a fine tree of the mimosa genus, with leaves, at a little distance, so much resembling those of the mountain ash, that I was for a moment deceived, and asked if it did not bring fruit. They answered no; but that it was a very noble tree, being called the imperial tree, for its excellent properties; that it slept all night, and awakened and was alive all day, withdrawing its leaves if