Of all the branches of magic, Wandlore is the most mysterious and complicated. To practice Wandlore takes years of experience. Not to mention alot of precision, patience, and fearlesness when it comes to potentialy being gored by unicorns. Along with all that, one must know the magical properties of different woods, and which woods are strong enough to make a good wand. for instance, woods like pine and balsa are much too soft and brittle to make for good, durable wands. Oak, ceder, and mahogany are much harder, and therefore better for wandmaking.
As to the matter of magical properties, beechwood is known for increasing wisdom; a ledgend encouraged by the fact that Rowena Ravenclaw owned a beechwood wand for the greater part of her professional life. Almond is known for increasing creativity and is excellent for creating spells. Cherry, when paired with a core like unicorn hair, is good for love charms, but when paired with Phoenix feather is even better for offensive spells. And then there are some woods that are just more powerful than others. Ironwood, Ebony and Black Palm are widely accepted as the most powerful woods out there when it comes to wandlore. Ironwood wands are commonly called "Aurors wands" beacause of their great powers in offensive, defensive, and healing spells. Some woods, like Yew and Black Walnut, have destructive workings. This is emphassiezed by the fact that Voldemort's wand is yew and Bellatrix Lestranges' is black walnut. And some wands just shouldn't be made at all. Exhibit "A": the Elder Wand. The Elder Wand's trail of murder and betrayal can be easily traced. More than one wizard has claimed to have owned it.(Emeric the Evil and Egbert the Egregious just to name two.)
Many superstitions have cropped up to do with wands. Like: "Rowan gossips, Chestnut groans Ash is stubborn, Hazle moans. Or: "When his wand's Oak and hers is Holly, then to marry would be folly." Or the ever popular: "Wand of Elder, never prosper."
But no matter what you do, there will always be those idiots who think thay are smarter than many wand makers and try stupid things with their wands. Like engraving so called "power enhancing runes" on the surface of their wand, attempting to use charmed owl feathers as a core, or even using protection and "invincibility charms" -note the quotation marks- on their brand new wand. the last one is extreamly inadvisable as your spells will congeal in the wand before they ever leave it and can cause major complecations when you try to repair it.
Whatever the wand, whatever the wood, wandlore is an acient practice. Not to be dabbled in unless you really know what your doing.
Yours sincerly,
M.V. Bones
all italiscized words or phrases are from the wrightings of J.K. Rowling.
