Someone recently told me that “knocking on wood” was not really a superstition because it refers to knocking on the wood of the cross. Is this true? Curious, I decided to do some checking. Here’s what I found out.
According to Rosemary Hathaway, Associate Professor of English at West Virginia University who refers to herself as a “teacher of folklore,” the origins of this practice are somewhat complicated. Most commonly, the practice is believed to originate in pagan Europe and people who believed that it called upon tree-dwelling spirits “to ward off bad luck or an expression of gratitude for good fortune.”
She cites Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which claims that certain trees such as oak, ash, hazel, hawthorn and willow “had a sacred significance and thus protective powers.”
When Christianity swept through Europe, reformers may have transformed this belief by linking the practice to the wood of the cross.
However, Evan Andrews, author and travel writer for History.com, disagrees with the ancient pedigree of the practice and believes it’s a much more modern phenomenon. He cites the book, The Lore of the Playground by British folklorist Steve Roud which traces the practice to a 19th century children’s game called “Tiggy Touchwood.” This was a tag game in which players were exempt from being tagged if they touched a piece of wood.
“Given that the game was concerned with ‘protection,’ and was well known to adults as well as children, it is almost certainly the origin of our modern superstitious practice of saying, ‘Touch wood,’” he argues. “The claim that the latter goes back to when we believed in tree spirits is complete nonsense.”
He cites similar practices such as in Turkey where people pull on one earlobe and knock on wood twice to ward off a hex. Italians touch iron instead of wood.
What about Catholics who knock on wood as a way of invoking the wood of the Cross for Christ’s protection? Isn’t that okay?
In the book, Religious Superstition Through the Ages, author Don Lewis says this practice “is thus a way of involving the power of the cross in the face of danger or misfortune. In some areas it is even said that one is supposed to knock on wood three times, one for each Person of the Trinity.”
Yes, it’s a way of invoking the power of the cross, but if you really believe in that power, why do you need to knock on something? By doing so, you may be saying you don’t believe you can invoke the power of the Cross or the Trinity unless you accompany that belief with a knock. In this case, the knock would be superstitious.
The same could be said about putting a statue of Our Lady in the window to bring about good weather. If you really believe in Our Lady’s intercession to bring about fair skies, why bother with the statue? Why not just ask her in prayer? By putting the statue in the window, what you’re really saying is that you can’t gain her intercession unless you put the statue in the window. If you really belief that, then you’ve crossed the line into superstition.
Another example would be putting nine copies of a “Never Fail” novena prayer in nine churches. If you really believe the novena cannot fail, what’s the point of the copies? If you put out copies, what you’re really saying is that you don’t believe it will work without putting out the copies. That’s superstition.
Prayer does not need to be accompanied by a gesture in order to make it efficacious. It’s the intention of the prayer, and God’s response to that intention, that matters, not the gesture. Pious practices such as kneeling at prayer, praying for nine days, or offering a sacrifice along with a petition is a wonderful way to express our sincerity, but can become a meaningless superstition if done without the right intention. Once we lose sight of this fact, we run the risk of slipping into superstition, even unwittingly.
The bottom line is that invoking Christ’s protection through the wood of the cross is a pious practice, but forget the knock. You don’t need it!
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