The Magic Walking-Stick by John Buchan is about a pair of walking sticks in which one stick must have a practical use to function and one must not have a practical use to function – only the book's hero does not know which he has. Excerpt: "Magic," gasped the dull of mind, When the harnessed earth and skies Drew the nomads of their kind To uncharted empires— Whispers round the globe were sped, Construed was the planets' song."