Awand is a thin, light-weight rod that is held with one hand, and is traditionally made ofwood, but may also be made of other materials, such as metal, bone or stone. Long versions of wands are often styled in forms of staves orsceptres, which could have large ornamentation on the top.
In modern times, wands are usually associated withstage magic orsupernatural magic, but there have been other uses, all stemming from the original meaning as a synonym ofrod andvirge. A stick that is used for reaching, pointing, drawing in the dirt, and directing other people, is one of the earliest and simplest of tools.
It is possible that wands were used by pre-historic peoples. It is mentioned that 'rods' (as well as rings) were found withRed Lady of Paviland in Britain. It is mentioned inGower – A Guide to Ancient and Historic Monuments on the Gower Peninsula that these might have been wands and are depicted as such in a reconstruction drawing of the burial of the 'Red Lady'.[1]
During theMiddle Kingdom of Egypt,apotropaic wands began to be used during birth ceremonies. These wands were made out ofhippopotamustusks which were split down the middle lengthwise, producing two wands, each with one flat side and one curved side. Due to the curved nature of a hippopotamus tusk, these wands were curved, with one pointed end (the point of the tusk) and one blunt end (where the tusk was removed from the hippopotamus). Hippopotamus tusks may have been used to invokeTaweret the hippopotamus goddess of childbirth.[2] The earliest apotropaic wands used in Egypt were undecorated, but "from around 1850 BC, they were usually provided with decorations of apotropaic figures directly related to the sun religion, or particular aspects of it, inscribed on the convex upper side... most of whom carry knives to ward off evil forces".[3] These apotropaic wands were also inscribed with protective text on the flat side, such as "Cut off the head of the enemy when he enters the chamber of the children whom the lady... has borne".[4] The latest apotropaic wand found belongs to theSecond Intermediate Period kingSenebkay.[5] It seems that the use of these objects in Egypt declines after this point.
TheBarsom used byZoroastrianMagi is a bundle of twigs that was used during religious ceremonies. While the Barsom is not a wand itself, it was also used for divination purposes, and may be a form of prototypical wand from which later magical wands descend.[6]
The concept of magic wands was used by the ancient Greek writerHomer, in hisepic poemsThe Iliad andThe Odyssey. In all cases, Homer used the wordrhabdos (ῥάβδος), which means 'rod', and implies something that is thicker than the modern conception of wands. In those books, Homer wrote that magic wands were used by three different gods, namelyHermes,Athena, andCirce. InThe Iliad, Homer wrote that Hermes generally used his magic wandCaduceus to make people sleep and wake up. InThe Odyssey, Homer wrote that Athena used her magic wand to make Odysseus old, and then young again, and that Circe used her magic wand to turn Odysseus's men into pigs.
By the 1st century AD, the wand was a common symbol of magic in Roman cults, especiallyMithraism. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, there are frequent depictions onsarcophagi ofJesus Christ according to one opinion using a magic wand to perform miracles, such as theraising of Lazarus andfeeding the multitude. Others scholars disagree with that,[7] claiming that these objects are staffs since images of Christ with it "appear alongside images of Moses performing miracles with the staff".
Italianfairy tales put wands into the hands of the powerful fairies by theLate Middle Ages.[8]
Wands are used in theEnochian magic ofJohn Dee, theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,Thelema, andWicca, and by independent practitioners of magic.
Wands were introduced into the occult via the 13th-century LatingrimoireThe Oathbound Book of Honorius. The wand idea from theBook of Honorius, along with various other ideas from that grimoire, were later incorporated into the 16th-century grimoireThe Key of Solomon.The Key of Solomon became popular among occultists for hundreds of years. In 1888, there was the publication of an English translation of theKey of Solomon bySamuel Mathers (one of the co-founders ofthe Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), which made the text of theKey of Solomon available to the anglophone world. That 1888 English version inspiredGerald Gardner, the creator ofWicca, to incorporate the wand and various other ritual objects into Wicca.
The creators of the Golden Dawn got their idea to use a wand, as well as their other main ritual objects (dagger, sword, hexagrammicpentacle, and cup), from the writings of the mid-19th-century occult writerEliphas Levi. Levi himself mentioned most of those objects (all except for the cup) in his writings because they are in theKey of Solomon, whereas he got the cup from thetarotsuit of cups. In Levi's 1862 bookPhilosophie Occulte, he wrote a fake excerpt of a Hebrew version of theKey of Solomon, and that fake excerpt was part of the inspiration for the Golden Dawn's ritual objects, and especially their lotus wand.
Theceremonial magic of theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn uses several different types of wands for different purposes, the most prominent of which are the fire wand and the lotus wand. InWicca, wands are traditionally used to summon and control angels and genies,[9][10] but have later come to also be used for general spell-casting. Wands serve a similar purpose toathames (ritual daggers), though the two objects have their distinct uses: an athame is used to command, whereas a wand is seen as more gentle, and is used to invite or encourage.
Wands are traditionally made of wood—practitioners usually prune a branch from anoak,hazel, or other tree, or may even buy wood from ahardware store, and then carve it and add decorations to personalize it, though one can also purchase ready-made wands. InWicca, the wand can represent the elementair,[10][11] orfire (following the wiccan authorRaymond Buckland, who got his element associations from the Golden Dawn), although contemporary wand-makers also create wands for the elements ofearth andwater.
Thesuit of wands is one of the four suits in the 1909Rider–Waite–Smith occult tarot deck, and other, latertarot decks that are based upon that deck. The suit of wands replaced thesuit of batons from earlier, non-occult tarot decks. The Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck also replaced thesuit of coins from earlier, non-occult decks, with thesuit of pentacles. The Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck was designed by two members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,Arthur Edward Waite andPamela Colman Smith. Waite provided the general guidelines for the deck (including the names of the four suits, and thus the suit of wands), and detailed guidelines for the designs of theMajor Arcana, and he hired Smith to do the painting, and to make original artwork for theMinor Arcana. Waite instructed Smith to not paint actualwands in the wand cards, but rather to paint large tree trunk staffs with some foliage growing on them, so as to make an association between wands andEliphas Levi's phrase "the floweringrod of Aaron" from Levi's fake fragment ofThe Key of Solomon.
In British formal governmentceremony, special officials may carry awand of office that represents theirpower. Compare in this context the function of theceremonial mace, thescepter, and thestaff of office. Its age may be even greater, as Stone Age cave paintings show figures holding sticks, which may be symbolic representations of their power.[12][better source needed] The association with power may be its use for corporal punishment.
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In the 18th-century ballads "Allison Gross" and "The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea", the villainesses use silver wands to transform their victims into animals, in emulation of the Odyssey that preceded them.[13] InC. S. Lewis's 1950 novelThe Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, theWhite Witch's most feared weapon is her wand, whose magic is capable of turning people into stone. This, again, employs the Odysseyan motif of an evil female witch who uses a magic wand to maliciously transform her victims.
In the mid-20th century, theMGM andDisney media companies popularized magic wands via four films in which wands were wielded by benevolent female fairy characters. Those films wereThe Wizard of Oz (1939; MGM; a wand-staff was wielded byGlinda the Good Witch of the North),Pinocchio (1940; Disney; a wand was wielded by theBlue Fairy),Cinderella (1950; Disney; a wand was wielded by afairy godmother), andSleeping Beauty (1959; Disney; a wand was wielded by each of three fairies). InThe Wizard of Oz andPinocchio, the fairies' wands are embellished with a star-shaped ornament on the end, whereas inCinderella andSleeping Beauty, the fairies have wands with traditional plain tips.
Magic wands commonly feature in works offantasy fiction asspell-castingtools. Few other common denominators exist, so the capabilities of wands vary wildly. InJ. K. Rowling'sHarry Potter series, the first book of which was published in 1997, personalwands are common as necessary tools to channel and project each character's magic, they are used as weapons in magical duels, and it is the wand that chooses its owner. A wand is also present in theChildren of the Red King series in the possession of Charlie Bone as well as the popularMMORPGWorld of Warcraft where caster classes such as the mage and warlock use wands offensively.
Magic wands and staves are often used in themagical girl genre of anime and manga (or other media) as well.
Based on their magical symbolism,stage magicians often use "magic wands" as part of theirmisdirection.[14] These wands are traditionally short and black, with white tips. A magic wand may be transformed into other items, grow, vanish, move, display a will of its own, or behave magically in its own right. A classic magic trick makes a bouquet of flowers shoot out of the wand's tip.
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