Witching - Part Two

by Hattie Dyck

   Cecil Stevens, Brookfield, who is now 86 years young (2013) witched water for many years. He learned how to do it from his father, the late Alvin Stevens of Brentwood. Mr. Stevens spent 37 years working with the Nova Scotia Department of Highways and

helped people find water wherever his work took him around the province. He did it for fun and never charged anyone a cent for the use of his skill.

   Mr. Stevens always witched with a crotched stick from a willow or an apple tree. He said you could use a maple bush but he preferred the apple or willow branch. He always tried to get a fresh one to use so it wouldn’t be dry and break. His crotched branch would have two prongs which were 9 or 10 inches long. He would hold one prong in each hand with the branch facing upward. When he passed over the place where the water was, the branch would rush downward with enough force that he couldn’t hold it. He would mark that spot with a rock. He would then walk a distance away from that spot and head back towards it. When he hit water again he would stop and mark that spot with another rock. The distance between the two rocks was the distance they would have to drill or dig to get water.

   Ironically, Mr. Stevens is left handed and so was his late father. He doesn’t know if that has anything to do with his witching gift.

   When Willis Kitchen first learned about water divining he didn’t believe in it. The owner of Willis Kitchen Well Drilling Ltd. of Noel, went to Gaspereaux Mountain to drill a well for David and Leslie Cavanaugh. Leslie was the daughter of Willis’ former high school principal Glen Williams at Hants North Rural High School at Kennetcook. When he arrived at the home Mrs. Cavanaugh informed him that she knew exactly where she wanted him to drill as she had witched it before he got there. In his mind he thought she didn’t know what she was talking about, but she was paying the bill so he decided to do what she wanted him to do. To his great surprise she was right. He found the water exactly where she told him to drill. And when he drilled to 79 feet the water was rolling over the ground.

   At that time Willis was building a house in Noel and Mrs. Cavanaugh offered him the witching rods to take home and use for himself. He witched his yard, found the right spot and got water at 73 feet. From that day on all his doubts about the witching method disappeared.

   The late Margaret Laffin of Noel had a well drilled to 260 feet and didn’t have enough water to run the household. Willis witched one for her just 25 feet away from the first one and got plenty of water.

The tools that Willis uses are two steel rods held parallel to one another. When you come to water their position will change. If the water is within 30 feet underground the rods will go outward and it will be a shallow well. If it’s going to be a deep well they will

cross. The rods he uses were heavier than coat hangers.

   Willis has met a lot of skeptical people in his years of well drilling and some didn’t want him to use the witching process. He would follow their dictates as they were paying the bill. But, after he became a believer, to make it easier for everyone, he witched the area first and then began to drill. It never failed for him. He remembers the late Prescott MacLellan and the late Atwood MacLellan of Tenecape as master witchers. Together he said they probably did a couple of hundred wells in their lifetime.

   Prescott, who always used willow rods, would not only find the water, he could tell you how many feet you would have to drill to get to it. Willis isn’t sure of Cecil Stevens’ theory that being left handed plays a role in the gift of being a witcher but he is ambidextrous. He uses his left hand if he digs with a shovel

and his right hand to use an eating utensil.

From Great Nova Scotians, published in 2014.