Unless you’ve spent the last month locked in a deep, dark hole, you’re probably already well aware that today is Black Friday. Black Friday is, of course, the day after Thanksgiving when most businesses start actually making a profit for the year (and, therefore, move out of the red ink used for a loss into the black ink used for a gain.) However, Black Friday is also another name for Friday the 13th, which makes it a perfect time to continue this five-part series on superstitions and their origins.
3. A Baker’s Dozen: A baker’s dozen refers to 13 items even though a dozen typically refers to 12. Some believe that the reason for this is that bakers used to give the 13th loaf to customers as a way to bribe the devil and keep him away.
Origin: People have distrusted businesses, traveling merchants, and pretty much anyone who has ever tried to sell them anything since bartering was first invented. However, bakers were traditionally amongst the individuals who people distrusted the most because it was easier for them to cheat their customers. All they had to do was simply make each loaf of bread a little smaller, and they would make more money by giving their customers less food. As a result, many countries have had strict laws since ancient times dictating exactly how much a loaf of bread should weigh. The problem is that some of these laws were extremely strict and required bakers to pay substantial fines or even forfeit some of their body parts if they failed to meet the minimum requirements even once.
As a result, many bakers decided that it was simply safer to give the customer an extra loaf of bread than risk losing an ear, a hand, or his or her life savings, and this practice was actually codified by one of the major baker’s guilds in London, the Worshipful Company of Bakers, during the middle ages. Of course, some bakers resented the fact that they had to give more food to their customers just to make sure that they didn’t suffer financial or physical harm, and they may have made some references to giving the “devil his due.” This led some people (probably bakers) to refer to a baker’s dozen as the “devil’s dozen”, and while there is a pretty good chance that there were some bakers who said that the extra loaf was to keep the devil away, they most likely meant it in the figurative sense (i.e. keeping the authorities who would fine them or sever their body parts away) than the literal sense (i.e. the actual devil).
4. Knocking on Wood: Knocking on wood is believed to protect you from harm if you’ve said or done something to jinx yourself.
Origin: While the exact origins of the superstition are unknown, the practice of knocking on wood has existed in some fashion since ancient times. In fact, the Ancient Celts, Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, Japanese, and a number of other ancient cultures all believed in some sort of tree spirit that would offer protection to those who respected the trees and forestlands. As a result, the custom may have begun as a way for people to chase away evil spirits by scaring them out of the trees and/or a way to ask the good forest spirits for their blessing. However, the expression, “knocking on wood” didn’t actually come into common use until the early 19th century, and it may, therefore, have a more practical origin (although, you never know, appeasing the forest spirits could be a pretty practical reason for the expression to exist as well.)
You see, prior to the mid 1800’s (and even somewhat afterwards), firearms were typically muzzle-loaded or, in other words, loaded from the barrel of the gun. This meant that an individual had to load the ammunition and the gunpowder very carefully in order to make sure that the gun didn’t fire prematurely (while it was aiming in their general direction or the direction of one of their compatriots) and to make sure that the gun would ultimately fire in the way that it was intended to fire. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always easy to get the gunpowder to sit correctly in these front-loaded weapons, and many people (especially during the U.S Revolutionary War) attempted to correct this issue by knocking on the stock of their rifle. The hope was that by knocking on the stock of the rifle, which of course was made of wood, they would be able to make the gunpowder settle more evenly and avoid all of the potentially life-threatening issues that could result from too much powder on one side of the weapon. This practice of “knocking on wood” to ensure that each weapon fired correctly may have played a part in creating or, at the very least, reinforcing the notion that knocking on wood can protect you from harm.
5. Wishbones: If two people take opposite ends of a wishbone, make a wish, and separate the wishbone, the person that ends up with the longer part of the bone will have his or her wish granted.
Origin: The exact origins of the superstition surrounding wishbones, like many superstitions, is certainly up for debate. However, even though there is some debate about exactly when and where the superstition surrounding wishbones originated, most historians agree that the superstition originated hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago in Europe (possibly in Ancient Italy.) The belief that wishbones might have special powers appears to have arisen from a common practice that was quite popular during the medieval era, but actually dates back to ancient times – alectromancy. Alectromancy, which is also known as alectryomancy or Rooster Divination, is the practice of using the bones of birds or the patterns that birds make to predict the future. Many people, especially in Ancient Italy and Rome, believed that they could use the patterns that birds form in scattered grain or the patterns formed by scattering the bones of sacrificed birds to identify thieves, predict the weather, and predict the outcome of major battles.
In fact, the Ouija board that we all know and love or loathe, is actually based on a common practice in alectromancy in which a person would draw a circle and divide it almost like a pie. The individual would then draw a letter on each piece of the pie-like circle and place some grain on each letter. This would allow the diviner to place a bird in the center of the circle so that he or she could record each of the letters that the bird pecked at and use these letters to make his or her prediction. Some historians believe that this practice was so popular that people began to seek out the bones of chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and other birds so that their powers of divination could be used even after the bird’s death.
Dying to learn more about superstitions and their origins? Part III of 13 Superstitions and Their Origins will appear next week, and if you missed the first part of the series, you can find it here.
Photo credit: David Meurin / Foter.com / CC BY
Works Consulted
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Davis, Marcia. “Wishbone Myth Has Long History.” Knoxville News. Journal Media Group, 19 Nov. 2006. Web. 26 Nov. 2015.
Padden, Kathy. “Why Do We Knock on Wood?” Today I Found Out. Today I Found Out, 21 Jan. 2014. Web. 26 Nov. 2015.
Soniak, Matt. “Why Do We Knock on Wood?” Mental Floss. Mental Floss, Inc., 16 Apr. 2013. Web. 26 Nov. 2015.
Soniak, Matt. “Why Do We Wish on the Turkey’s Wishbone?” Mental Floss. Mental Floss Inc., 24 Nov. 2015. Web. 26 Nov. 2015.
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Wikipedia contributors. “List of tree deities.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Sep. 2015. Web. 26 Nov. 2015.