[31] Henderson, Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England,
p. 202

In the Middle Ages the hand of glory was used, just like the
divining-rod, for the detection of buried treasures.

Here, then, we have a large and motley group of objects--the
forked rod of ash or hazel, the springwort and the
luck-flower, leaves, worms, stones, rings, and dead men's
hands--which are for the most part competent to open the way
into cavernous rocks, and which all agree in pointing out
hidden wealth. We find, moreover, that many of these charmed
objects are carried about by birds, and that some of them
possess, in addition to their generic properties, the specific
power of benumbing people's senses. What, now, is the common
origin of this whole group of superstitions? And since
mythology has been shown to be the result of primeval attempts
to explain the phenomena of nature, what natural phenomenon
could ever have given rise to so many seemingly wanton
conceptions? Hopeless as the problem may at first sight seem,
it has nevertheless been solved. In his great treatise on "The
Descent of Fire," Dr. Kuhn has shown that all these legends
and traditions are descended from primitive myths explanatory
of the lightning and the storm-cloud.[32]

[32] Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertranks.
Berlin, 1859.

To us, who are nourished from childhood on the truths revealed