I actually had the opportunity to see a divining rod in action. My
Danish grandparents, who lived in
North Dakota, had purchased an old house. The
blueprints for the sewer were gone they and needed to find the old sewer pipes in the back yard without digging up the whole thing. So my
grandmother went down to the
river bottoms and found a diamond
willow, which is a
willow tree infected with a
fungus, causing
diamond shaped patterns in the bark. She cut a fresh Y shaped stick about 2 cm in diameter. I followed her in anticipation as she walked across the lawn, holding the top ends of the Y in her hands with the palms up. When she had reached the spot that contained the sewer, I saw the stick twist down toward the ground. The stick turned down to the
earth so violently that the bark was twisted and shredded where her hand were holding.
The next day a crew came and dug up the sewer in that exact spot.