Wand

Long versions of wands are often styled in forms of staves or sceptres, which could have large ornamentation on the top.

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.

[3] These apotropaic wands were also inscribed with protective text on the flat side, such as "Cut off the head of the enemy when he enters the chamber of the children whom the lady... has borne".

[6] The concept of magic wands was used by the ancient Greek writer Homer, in his epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey.

In all cases, Homer used the word rhabdos (ῥάβδος), which means 'rod', and implies something that is thicker than the modern conception of wands.

In those books, Homer wrote that magic wands were used by three different gods, namely Hermes, Athena, and Circe.

In The Iliad, Homer wrote that Hermes generally used his magic wand Caduceus to make people sleep and wake up.

In the 3rd and 4th centuries, there are frequent depictions on sarcophagi of Jesus Christ according to one opinion using a magic wand to perform miracles, such as the raising of Lazarus and feeding the multitude.

The creators of the Golden Dawn got their idea to use a wand, as well as their other main ritual objects (dagger, sword, hexagrammic pentacle, and cup), from the writings of the mid-19th-century occult writer Eliphas Levi.

The Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck was designed by two members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith.

In British formal government ceremony, special officials may carry a wand of office that represents their power.

In the 18th-century ballads "Allison Gross" and "The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea", the villainesses use silver wands to transform their victims into animals, in emulation of the Odyssey that preceded them.

This, again, employs the Odysseyan motif of an evil female witch who uses a magic wand to maliciously transform her victims.