diff --git a/Source/NSXMLNode.m b/Source/NSXMLNode.m
index 78de03e19..99a29d3ba 100644
--- a/Source/NSXMLNode.m
+++ b/Source/NSXMLNode.m
@@ -253,6 +253,9 @@ NSArray *execute_xpath(NSXMLNode *node,
       return nil;
     }
 
+  if (![xpath_exp hasPrefix:@"/"])
+    xpathCtx->node = doc; // provide a context for relative paths
+
   /* Evaluate xpath expression */
   xpathObj = xmlXPathEvalExpression(xpathExpr, xpathCtx);
   if(xpathObj == NULL)