120 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
the main tree, that the flower occupied ; a Peach or Apricot, 
for instance, rests upon the branch which bore the flower. 
But in the Nut a different arrangement prevails. As soon as 
the flower is fertilized it starts away from the parent branch; a 
fresh branch is produced, bearing leaves and the Nut or Nuts 
at the end, so that the Nut is produced several inches away 
from the spot on which the flower originally was. I know of 
no other tree that produces its fruit in this way, nor do 
I know what special benefit to the plant arises from this 
arrangement. 
Much folk-lore has gathered round the Hazel tree and the 
Nuts. The cracking of Nuts, with much fortune-telling 
connected therewith, was the favourite amusement on All 
Hallow’s Eve (Oct. 31), so that the Eve was called Nutcrack 
Night. I believe the custom still exists; it certainly has 
not been very long abolished, for the Vicar of Wakefield and 
his neighbours “religiously cracked Nuts on All Hallow’s 
Eve.” And in many places “ an ancient custom prevailed of 
going a Nutting on Holy Rood Day (Sept. 14), which it was 
esteemed quite unlucky to omit.”— Forster} 
A greater mystery connected with the Llazel is the divining 
rod, for the discovery of water and metals. This has always 
by preference been a forked Hazel-rod, though sometimes 
other rods are substituted. The belief in its power dates 
from a very early period, and is by no means extinct. The 
divining-rod is still used in Cornwall for the discovery of ore, 
and in many other parts of England for the discovery of water; 
nor has this belief been confined to the uneducated. Even 
Linnaeus confessed himself to be half a convert to it, and 
learned treatises have been written accepting the facts, and 
accounting for them by electricity or some other subtle natural 
agency. Many, however, will rather agree with Evelyn’s 
cautious verdict, that the virtues attributed to the forked stick 
“made out so solemnly by the attestation of magistrates, and 
1 See a long account of the connection of nuts with All Hallow’s Eve in 
Hanson, “Med. sevi Calend.” i. 363. 
