The Forked Rod, and the Diviner

The hazel is the classic wood of the divining or dowsing rod: a forked hazel twig, held under tension, was and in places still is used to search for water, metal or lost objects, twitching downward over the find. The practice is old and geographically wide, and it is folk divination rather than anything with a demonstrated physical basis, the movement now generally explained as the involuntary ideomotor effect. In the wider European tradition the hazel is a tree of protection, fertility and knowledge, its rods cut for wands and its nuts used in love-divination at Samhain and Halloween. The plant's associations cluster consistently around wisdom, hidden knowledge and the finding of what is concealed.

Kent in south-east England developed its own commercial hazel tradition distinct from any magical use: the Kentish cobnut, a large-fruited cultivated hazel variety, has been grown as an orchard crop there since at least the nineteenth century, traditionally harvested green in late summer around the old Cob Nut Day, 5 August, old Lammas Day kept nine days later than the modern calendar, a harvest custom that persists in a much reduced way today alongside the older wisdom and dowsing lore recorded above.