When you touch or knock on wood, you're asking God to help your luck. People would knock on wood to beseech friendly spirits for help or to thank them for assistance.Īs with many superstitions, there's also a Christian explanation: The wood represents the holy cross. The most common explanation is that the superstition comes from the pagan belief that spirits lived in trees. The origins of knocking on wood (or, as some prefer to say, touching wood) for luck are controversial. Have you ever wished for something to happen, then knocked on wood so that you wouldn't jinx your luck? Ever stopped to think about why you do that?

It's interesting that people also cross their fingers when they're lying - perhaps hoping for luck in not getting caught or forgiveness from God for the lie. Or it could simply be that Christians would invoke the symbol as a kind of shortcut to prayer. One of these may have involved making a cross with their fingers, especially when they prayed for help or luck. To avoid persecution, Christians would use secret signs to express themselves and to communicate with one another.

That gesture of support would make the wish more likely to come true.Ī Christian theory of how crossing fingers became lucky is that during the early days of Christianity, the Romans attempted to suppress the spread of the Christian faith. Therefore, by simulating a crossing with your crossed fingers, you could summon a good spirit to help make a wish come true.Īnother theory is that when one person made a wish, another would lay a finger across theirs to form a cross, a powerful symbol even before Christianity. Nobody is sure where the idea of crossing our fingers for luck comes from, but there are several plausible theories.Ī pagan explanation for why we cross our fingers might stem from the belief that spirits were found at crossings.

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