Hope I am never superstitious, touch wood!

Hope I am never superstitious, touch wood!

Her mother fell in the bathroom but touch wood, there were no serious injuries. 

Touch wood, the play does well and the director can finally pay the artistes.

We just got the house painted; touch wood, it does not rain now.

I met my aunt in Ahmedabad and touch wood, for an 80-year-old she is doing very well.

I was late to office but touch wood the boss had his back to the door when I crossed it to go to my cabin.

Hope Covid has gone forever, touch wood.

We might argue that we are not superstitious, but ‘touch wood’ has become a part of speech, and at least once in a day most of us utter it and follow that with touching an object made of wood.

We are aware that the expression is used (superstitiously) to ward off any imminent misfortune or to invite good luck so that whatever good happens, continues.

If something favourable happens, you do not want the spirits to get jealous, do you? So, we say touch wood and actually look for wood, scurrying to touch a table, chair, stool, pencil, anything made of wood.

The Americans say ‘knock on wood’. You might also ‘cross your fingers’ or ‘keep fingers crossed’ or ‘hope for the best’.

Does touching wood invite good luck? Science may not have an answer but there are many beliefs I found that I thought I should share with you.

Some of the reasons are:

Coal miners would knock on each wooden roof support, as they passed it, to ensure that they were strong.

Sailors would tap their foot on the ship’s deck and use the term to persuade fate to invoke favourable winds.

Lumberjacks would ‘hug’ a tree for its safe felling.

There is also the possibility that the expression has travelled down the times from auction houses and barns of the 18th Century. In those times, after you placed your bid on livestock, if the auctioneer touched wood, it meant you had won the bid. To the present day, during auctions the auctioneer hits the block with his gavel made of wood. So, when one says touch wood, it means they win or hope to get lucky.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that in the early 19^th century Britain, children played a tag game called Tiggy-touch-wood wherein they would touch wood to become immune from being caught.

The commonest belief, however, is that in the ancient pagan times, people thought that spirits lived in trees, and touching or knocking on the tree would protect them (people) from bad luck.  It was also a way of showing respect or expressing gratitude for the good luck they enjoyed.

Some also believed that the noise made by knocking would prevent the evil spirits from hearing what one was thinking.

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says, “traditionally, certain trees, such as the oak, ash, hazel, hawthorn and willow, had a sacred significance and thus protective powers.”

During Chaucer’s time, the pardoners and the summoners sold relics i.e., pieces of wood, claiming them to be Fragments of the True Cross. People kept them in their pockets, and upon hearing of some misfortune, said a prayer and touched it, hoping that Jesus would protect them.

The other variations are ‘touch wood and an acorn won’t fall’ or ‘touch wood and whistle’ when one is expected to do so.

Around the world

Nobody wants to tempt fate. That is why we says nazar na lage, let the evil eye not touch you.

The Egyptians use a phrase to say ‘hold the wood’ while the Arab equivalent is imsek el-khashab, or knock on wood which is bater na madeira in Brazil, koputtaa puuta in Finland and chtipa xilo in Greece.

The Swedish try to avoid bad luck with ta i trä. Iranians say a whole sentence - Bezan-am be takhteh, cheshm nakhoreh. (I am knocking on wood to prevent him/her from being jinxed.)

Romanians utter a bate in lemn while the Turkish pull on an ear lobe (their own) and knock on wood twice to plead to God to save them. Whether they live in Trinidad and Tobago, Syria, Lebanon, Malaysia, Thailand or Bulgaria, people trust the mere act of touching or knocking on wood would save them from bad luck.

The Russians and the Polish trust ‘unpainted’ wood when it comes to preventing misfortune. But the Czech not only knock on wood with klepat na dřevo, but also knock on their teeth for extra effect.

On hearing of misfortunes, Indonesians say amit-amit as they knock their fingers on wood and then their heads.

The Italians, known for their strong metallurgical industry, however, prefer iron over wood, saying tocca ferro to conjure good luck, on hearing of death.

Yet my favourite and perhaps the wisest, is that in the 18th century USA, men knocked on the wood stock of muzzle-loading rifles to level gunpowder, thus making sure that the weapon fired clean.  

Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski has called this the anxiety-ritual theory. It says when people get anxious due to uncertainty, they generally turn to magic to achieve a sense of control.

But how does it matter? If merely touching a piece or item made of  wood gives one peace of mind and moral support, it is worth it.

God forbid, there is no wood around at that moment to touch. We might get anxious while some ingenious ones would touch their own heads. Is that how the word blockhead came into existence?

Remember Casablanca (1942) when the band knock on their heads in the song ‘Knock on Wood’ “… your luck will change if you arrange, to knock on wood”?

As more and more forests disappear due to urbanization, the day is not far when we would all be touching our heads hoping to ward off ill-luck and with time, that would become the accepted norm.

Wood would be scarce, and touching it would mean touching something precious. Then this is one superstition environmentalists would be happy about. I say save the trees if you want good luck.

                                                                                                - Anupama S Mani