Not At All, Touch Wood!

Initially, I said to myself, ‘Of course not’. Superstition is something I grew out of ages ago. When I thought about it, however, that isn’t true. My superstition is beneath the surface and comes out in actions, words and decisions often without me realising. A good example is the phrase in the title, which is part of our common experience growing up in the UK. I read somewhere that the derivation of the phrase comes from both Pre-Christian and Christian religions. Pagans believed that trees had powerful spirits who could intercede on your behalf so the idea of touching wood was that if you connected to the spirit directly it may listen to your request. Christians, as they commonly did, took the tradition and gave it a more gospel based focus by saying that the wood they were referring to was the true cross of Jesus. Of course, like the bones of popes and saints the pieces of the ‘true cross’ were anything but. However, if I am aware that I am trusting to luck, I still have the automatic response of ‘touch wood’ straight after.

As anyone who has read my blog over the last few months and years will know, I am obsessed with Christmas, a time of the year riven with superstition. For example, you must make sure you take all of your decorations down by Twelfth Night. It’s connected, again, to religious ideas. Twelfth Night coincided with the end of Candlemas, the final day of the section of the liturgical calendar encompassing Advent and Christmas. Taking the decorations down was initially done to show that you were ready for Epiphany which market the start of the next phase. After all, you couldn’t be focused on important matters if you still had your Christmas decorations in place. Even in our modern world, it is a useful end point at the time of the year when people are returning to work in the UK. It says that the fun is over and it’s time to focus on earning money!

Finally I will look at things happening in threes. Even at my most resistant to superstition I held to this idea. Apparently it’s rooted in our brain’s tendency to look at things in groups of three. When we are speaking to an audience or writing for an audience we try to increase the effectiveness of what we are trying to say by putting ideas together in groups of three. My latest set of posts about the A to Z of Classic Children’s TV (a fascinating set of articles you really should check out 🤔😂) include reflections on three episodes of the shows chosen, with the exception of The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe which I split into three articles! We notice things good and bad which happen in threes and if two fortunate or, more commonly, unfortunate events are detected by our brains we immediately start looking for the third.

So, all these and many others are hard wired into us by tradition, upbringing and the way our brains work. Whether we try to avoid them or not, they are part of us. Now, I am off to walk under a ladder! 🤣🤣😉😉