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Crossing You Fingers (Superstition)

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floyd23a1

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Does anyone know the origins of why we cross our fingers for luck?

Cheers

Floyd.
 
One search found this...



Charles Panati, in Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, has a nice article on crossing one's fingers as a sign of luck or making a wish. He traces it back to pre-Christian times, when the cross was a symbol of unity and benign spirits dwelt at the intersection point. A wish made on a cross was a way of "anchoring" the wish at the intersection of the cross until the wish was fulfilled.
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Panati says this superstition was popular among many early European cultures. It originally took two people. A comrade or well-wisher placing his index finger over the index finger of the person making the wish, the two fingers forming a cross. The one person makes the wish, the other empathizes and supports. Over centuries, the custom was simplified, so that a person could wish on his own, by crossing his index and middle fingers to form an X. But traces remain--two people hooking index fingers as a sign of greeting or agreement is still common in some circles today.
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interesting stuff. thanks

I imagined that it may have had some sort of christian root, not pre-christian.

cheers

floyd


(edited for poor spelling)
 
Thought about adding this to the short ambulance thread, but I think it's sufficiently different. Why does crossing fingers mean both good luck and that you mean the opposite of what you've said? Is it coincidence?

I know making the sign of the cross is a common superstition going back centuries, but is the opposite meaning a recent development?
 
If one is willing to presume both gestures derived from a common Euro-Christian origin, I'd suggest the seminal theme was warding off evil / sin. It's no big stretch to construe the notion of 'good luck' in terms of warding off bad luck (evil, sin, etc.). The liar / trickster is committing a sin by lying, and thus might want to ward off the ill effects of his / her prevarication.
 
Then again, crossing something, like putting a line through it on the page, could also be a way of denoting the opposite, and that could be the intended gesture with the crossed fingers.

Anyway, if it really was the sign of the Biblical cross, wouldn't using two hands to do it, as if warding off a vampire, be a better bet?
 
Be a bit of a giveaway though if you were doing it while fibbing.
 
oldrover said:
Be a bit of a giveaway though if you were doing it while fibbing.
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Aren't you supposed to do it behind your back? Assuming anyone does it seriously.
 
I'd go with the protection against ill effect brought on by behaving in a two faced manner.

When I do it I always make sure that someone other than the one being fiddled gets a chuckle out of it
 
In Sweden, it's "hold your thumbs". You wrap your fingers around your thumb, making a fist with the thumb on the inside, if you know what I mean.
 
Ringo_ said:
In Sweden, it's "hold your thumbs". You wrap your fingers around your thumb, making a fist with the thumb on the inside, if you know what I mean.
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Hm, can't think of a religious reason for that one...
 
This is from memory and is dumped out there for what it's worth:

In Noel Streatfeild's "Shoes" stories - I'm specifically thinking of "Ballet Shoes" - girls "held their thumbs" for each other in the same way that I was used to kids crossing their fingers - during suspenseful events like auditions, wishing their friends luck. "Ballet Shoes" was published in 1936 and Streatfeild was British.
 
This holding thumbs is a new one on me, maybe the practice died out in the UK since the 1930s but continued in other (Scandinavian) countries?
 
it's a secret way of making the sign when christians are prosecuted.
 
Some interesting comments and info on the 'holding thumbs' gesture can be found in these threads from word / phrase forums:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1484642

http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewto ... =7&t=21676

It would appear the holding thumbs gesture is much older than crossing fingers (at least to the extent of being documented in relation to luck ...). It would also appear that the holding thumbs tactic is mainly known nowadays in Germanic language and central European areas, along with South Africa. Cited references, though, seem to indicate it's well documented in the UK if you go back far enough in time.
 
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