The three diviners

Ten years ago our friends needed a new well. Their contractor suggested using a scientific approach to the question of where the well should be placed: have three different diviners come out at different times and if there was a common location that all three selected then that would be the spot to drill. To be as scientifically rigorous as possible the contractor suggested using diviners with different techniques. Although the techniques differed the diviners were remarkably similar: old, very short, Tuscan men.

The first diviner to visit our friends brandished a forked wooden divining rod. I am not sure if this was the same old, very short, Tuscan man who our contractor had brought in for a consultation about our water situation about five years ago. According to our builder he is famous all over the area. He appeared to be such at the top of his profession that he had an assistant carry the divining rod until he needed it. Maybe the assistant dropped the stick, or this was a different famous rod-using-diviner, but our friends’ expert appeared alone. He wandered all over their hilly four acres until he was satisfied that he had found three spots that he was certain contained water. These were subtly marked.

The second diviner came a week later. He was not a fan of the stick method and instead deployed a heavy washer suspended from a string which he proceeded to swing in a circle as he walked. He covered the acres as well and ultimately declared that he had found three spots which were carefully and unobtrusively marked. One of his spots was very near one from the first diviner.

My friends waited impatiently for what the third diviner would discover. He arrived a week later, introduced himself, and then turned away from my friends and appeared from the back to be fiddling with his pants. He turned back around while zipping up his fly and had a meter-long piece of metal wire emerging from the front of his trousers. He walked around the property, swinging the metal wire which preceded him, until he arrived at a spot and declared that he didn’t need to look further. This was the place where the water was. He knew because the wire was connected his “most valuable and sensitive pair” and he pointed to the wire and to the valuable and sensitive pair. Remarkably the spot he identified was very close to the position that the other two diviners had found.

Thus the well placement was scientifically determined and the task of drilling commenced. Water was struck and our friends have never had a problem with supply since.