I’ll be the first to admit that I had no idea what the below tool was when I first saw a photo circulating on the internet.

Fortunately, however, there were people who did…

At first glance it looks like a regular, old tree branch, V shaped but otherwise quite unremarkable.

Yet its story as a useful tool for mankind goes all the way back to the 1500s, and a practice known as “Water Dowsing”.

As per reports, the water dowser has several names, including a “diviner”, “doodlebug”, “well witch”, or “water-finder.”

Its primary job? Yep, you guess it: to locate water!

An individual would hold both branches of the stick in each hand, palms facing upwards. The stem of the V (the bottom bit where the two rods meet) is then titled toward the Earth at a 45-degree angle.

The user then walks back and forth, supposedly looking for vibrations at the bottom of the V to promise signs of water hidden beneath the Earth.

Apparently, dowsing with metal rods was a process used to find metals in the ground during the 1500s, though people began to then use the same method to find water for new homeowners living in rural areas.