He passed with his neighbours for a wizard, although he only professed to be a “_désorcelleur_” or white-witch, and was said to have been in the habit of taking those who applied to him to be unbewitched to a very old thorn-bush, which had grown up within the walls of an ancient square tower adjoining the house, and there, before sunrise, making them go through certain evolutions which were supposed to counteract the spells which had been cast upon them.[215] The hawthorn, or at least such specimens of the tree as are remarkable for their age, their size, or their gnarled branches, seems to be associated in the minds of our peasantry with magic and magical practices. The wizards and witches, when, in their nocturnal excursions they take the form of hares, rabbits, cats, or other animals, assemble under the shadow, or in the vicinity of some ancient thorn, and amuse themselves with skipping round it in the moonlight. The “_désorcelleur_” who pretends to the power of counteracting the spells of witches, and freeing the unfortunate victims of their art from their evil influence, resorts with the sufferer to some noted thorn-bush, and there goes through the ceremonies and incantations which are to free the sufferer. A large and very old tree, on the estate of a gentleman in the parish of St. Saviour’s, was, in days gone by, constantly resorted to at night for the purpose of cutting from it small portions of the wood to be carried about the person as a safeguard against witchcraft. It is essential to the efficacy of this charm that the part of the branch cut off should be that from which three spurs issue.[216] William Le Poidevin was told by his grandmother that the “blanche-épine” is “le roi des bois;” the wood must not be employed for common uses. A boat or ship, into the construction of which it entered, would infallibly be lost or come to grief.[217] [215] From the present proprietor of Anneville. [216] From George Allez, Esq., who calls the tree he speaks of “aube-épine,” but declares it was not a hawthorn. May it not be a mountain ash or rowan tree? [217] Among the Blakeway MSS. in the Bodleian Library I found noticed these superstitious cures for whooping-cough. “Near to Button Oak, in the Forest of Bewdley, grows a thorn in the form of an arch, one end in the county of Salop, the other in Stafford. This is visited by numbers in order to make their children pass under it for the cure of the whooping-cough.”--_Notes and Queries_, IV. Series, III. 216. DIVINING ROD. The following extract from a work published in London in 1815, but which is now very rarely to be met with, gives so good an account of the manner in which springs of water are believed in these islands to be discovered by means of the divining rod, that we have no hesitation in copying it at length.