Any plant
even remotely resembling one they had known at home was given the
dear familiar name. Now our witch-hazel, named for an English
hazel tree of elm lineage, has similar leaves it is true, but
likeness stops there; nevertheless, all the folklore clustered
about that mystic tree has been imported here with the title. By
the help of the hazel's divining-rod the location of hidden
springs of water, precious ore, treasure, and thieves may be
revealed, according to old superstition. Cornish miners, who live
in a land so plentifully stored with tin and copper lodes they
can have had little difficulty in locating seams of ore with or
without a hazel rod, scarcely ever sink a shaft except by its
direction.
The literature of Europe is filled with allusions to it. Swift
wrote:
"They tell us something strange and odd
About a certain magic rod
That, bending down its top divines
Where'er the soil has hidden mines
Where there are none, it stands erect
Scorning to show the least respect.
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