devils took for their churning-stick. The word means "a
churning-stick," and it appears also, with a prefixed
preposition, in the name of the fire-drill, pramantha. Now
Kuhn has proved that this name, pramantha, is etymologically
identical with Prometheus, the name of the beneficent Titan,
who stole fire from heaven and bestowed it upon mankind as the
richest of boons. This sublime personage was originally
nothing but the celestial drill which churns fire out of the
clouds; but the Greeks had so entirely forgotten his origin
that they interpreted his name as meaning "the one who thinks
beforehand," and accredited him with a brother, Epimetheus, or
"the one who thinks too late." The Greeks had adopted another
name, trypanon, for their fire-drill, and thus the primitive
character of Prometheus became obscured.

I have said above that it was regarded as absolutely essential
that the divining-rod should be forked. To this rule, however,
there was one exception, and if any further evidence be needed
to convince the most sceptical that the divining-rod is
nothing but a symbol of the lightning, that exception will
furnish such evidence. For this exceptional kind of
divining-rod was made of a pointed stick rotating in a block
of wood, and it was the presence of hidden water or treasure
which was supposed to excite the rotatory motion.

In the myths relating to Prometheus, the lightning-god appears
as the originator of civilization, sometimes as the creator of
the human race, and always as its friend,[59] suffering in its
behalf the most fearful tortures at the hands of the jealous
Zeus. In one story he creates man by making a clay image and