Wand
rod associated with magic
A wand is a thin, light-weight rod that is held with one hand, and is traditionally made of wood, 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 or sceptres, which could have large ornamentation on the top.
In modern times, wands are usually associated with stage magic or supernatural magic, but there have been other uses, all stemming from the original meaning as a synonym of rod and virge. 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.
History
It is possible that wands were used by pre-historic peoples. 'Rods' (as well as rings) were found with the Red Lady of Paviland in Britain. It is mentioned in Gower – 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'.
During the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, apotropaic wands began to be used during birth ceremonies. These wands were made out of hippopotamus tusks 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).
“Wand” enters the record as rod associated with magic. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wand, associated and magic can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wand” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.