Month: October 2017

STILL BEWITCHED

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In my last post I looked at the names of a range of Hallowe’en creatures and investigated their origins. Let’s now consider, too, the practitioners of magic – whether supernatural or real –  impersonated in today’s festivities.

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The most familiar of these, the witch, derives its modern name, in use since the 16th century,  from the Old English wicce (the feminine form) or wicca (the masculine), first attested as long ago as 890 CE, or perhaps was coined later from the verb to bewitch, descending from Old English wiccian. Many commentators have proposed a prehistoric origin for the English terms, but have not managed to agree on what that origin might be. Middle Low German, the nearest neighbouring language to ours, had wicken and wicheln for bewitch, but there are no other contemporary cognates (provably related words) recorded elsewhere in mediaeval Europe.

Earliest Depiction of a Witch on a Broomstick | Irish Archaeology

Attempts have been made to connect the Germanic witch-words with Indo-European roots denoting contorting (as when shamans are performing incantations), waking (the dead for instance) or casting lots (to determine destiny), but these are unconvincing. There is an unproven but more plausible link with Slav words derived from the Old Slavonic verbs meaning ‘to know’ which use the root ved- or wied-. Female witches were, in English too, described as ‘wise’ women, as in the equivalent Slovenian vedomec, or Polish wiedźma. The modern German name for witch, hexe, is probably, but again not provably, related to English hag, (Old English haegtesse) an ancient word which persisted in use among the superstitious in the United States, who also adopted ‘hex’ in the 19th century from Pennsylvanian German as a synonym for curse.

(Our relatively innocent domestic companion, the cat, could also double as a witch’s evil familiar, and nowadays as a Hallowe’en character in its own right. Its name, catte in Old English, is obviously related to Dutch kat and German Katze and more distantly to the earlier Latin cattus and Greek catta. Intriguingly, though, the word’s origin might not be Indo-European at all but Afro-Asiatic; in the Nubian language it is kadis, for Berbers kaddîska, and in Arabic qitt.)

Wizard History

The witch’s male counterpart, the wizard, certainly does derive his name from wisdom or knowing. Wisard, from Old English wys, wise and the suffix (originally French) -ard meaning person, first described a sage or a philosopher before mutating in the 16th century into the practitioner of magic we nowadays caricature in pointed hat and robe. The synonyms sorcerer or sorceress come from French sorcier, enchanter or magician, itself from Latin sors meaning fate, oracular pronouncement, from an Indo-European root denoting binding and sorting.

Review: 'It' Brings Back Stephen King's Killer Clown - The New York Times

I’m personally highly resistant to clowns in any form, but particularly the grotesque killer clowns that have been running amok in popular literature, cinema and even public places for the last couple of years. Forgive me, then, if I limit myself to etymology. The noun clowne (cloyne was a variant that has since disappeared) appeared in English in the 1560s, the verb form in 1600. The word originally signified a rustic, a clumsy peasant or simpleton. It is not clear exactly where it came from – some eminent authorities have tried to link it to the Latin colonnus, a farmer or settler, but it seems to others – and to me – that it’s no coincidence that similar-sounding words existed in Scandinavian and Low German usage, all related to our own ‘clod’ and ‘clump’ and evoking something lumpy, dense and crude. English dialects and the English of the tavern often adopted colloquialisms from other parts of Northwest Europe in the Early Modern period. Clown was first used to describe a costumed and painted circus performer in the 1720s and other languages including Welsh, French, Swedish and Slovenian subsequently borrowed the English word in this sense.

...for 2017’s festival, Marketing Week gave us a snapshot of the commercial implications:

https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/10/27/why-halloween-is-now-crucial-to-some-uk-brands/?cmpid=em~newsletter~weekly_news~n~n&utm_medium=em&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=weekly_news&eid=4232955&sid=MW0001&adg=E5AE84A1-4595-4F7C-B654-36202215BA19

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HALLOWE’EN CREATURES – ORIGINS AND ETYMOLOGIES

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What is a creature of the night? What are some? - Quora

The reanimated (it had virtually disappeared in Britain until revived in the 1980s in its American incarnation) festival of Hallowe’en draws ever nearer, and its ghastly avatars begin to assemble in the darkness. Wearyingly familiar though their images have become, thanks to commercialisation, the origins of these bugbears’ names are not always straightforward. The lurid orange pumpkin has mutated, its modern name an alteration of ‘pompone’ and ‘pumpion’ which could designate either melon or pumpkin in the 1540s. The English word was adopted from French pompon, from Latin peponem, meaning only melon, from the earlier Greek pepon. The ‘-kin’ suffix, meaning little or cute, was borrowed from Middle Dutch, the ‘pom/pum/pep’ component probably an example of prehistoric sound symbolism whereby the puffing required to say the words imitates the inflation of the bulbous object itself.

In fact it was more often the turnip that was hollowed out and illuminated in England, Scotland (where they are known as ‘tumshies’) and Ireland until recently, pumpkins being an American favourite. But there is a very odd connection between two of Hallowe’en’s most potent symbols in a 19th-century report by the Slovene folklorist Wiesthaler who writes that superstitious Balkan Gypsies believed that pumpkins (and watermelons too) could become possessed and exhibit vampiric characteristics.

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Hobgoblin (the ‘hob-‘ is a familiarising nickname, from Hobbe, a variant form of Robbe or Robin) or goblin appeared in English in the 14th century with the sense of mischievous ugly devil or fairy. It was probably borrowed from 12th century French gobelin which is thought to be related to mediaeval German kobold, a household or subterranean sprite, and possibly to the older Greek kobalos which denoted an impudent rogue. Sprite, incidentally, is a modern pronunciation of the Middle English ‘sprit’, a shortened form of spirit, while spook, borrowed by Americans from Dutch in the early 19th century has cognates in German, Swedish and Norwegian and probably comes from an ancient Germanic term for wizardry. Imp has meant little devil since the later 16th century, from the notion of a being that was the ‘offspring of satan’. In Old English ‘impa’ referred to a graft or shoot from a plant, coming to us via Latin impotus, from Greek emphytos, implant, ultimately from a presumed IndoEuropean word *bheu, grow.

Image result for goblins, sprites and imps victorian halloween postcards

Ghosts* are named from Old English gast which meant spirit or soul and could also mean breath. The ‘h’ was added in the 15th century, probably by printers influenced by the Flemish or Middle Dutch form of the word, gheest. Both are related to German geist, spirit, which comes from the presumed proto-Germanic *gaistaz, itself from a presumed Indo-European root *gheis– used to form terms conveying amazement and/or fright. In the same category are the phantom, from Greek phantasma (unreal image, apparition) which became Old French fantosme before being borrowed by English, the spectre retains the French form of a Latin word for an apparition,  spectrum, from the verb specere, to see. Wraith, on the other hand, is a Scottish word, recorded in the 15th century but of unknown provenance. It has been suggested that it is related to writhe or to wrath, or to an Old Norse word, vǫrðr, a guardian spirit or watcher.

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Though its spelling now makes it look like a relative of ghost, ghoul was originally Arabic غول gul, the name of an evil spirit, a desert demon recorded in Islamic folklore and said to haunt cemeteries, devour newly-buried cadavers, abduct children and attack travellers. Its root is a verb meaning to seize and it is probably related to galla, a very ancient Akkadian and Sumerian term for a fiend from the netherworlds. The word was anglicised, first as ‘ghul’, in the late 18th century.

Top Ten Origins: Zombies: The Undead Shuffle | Origins

Zombie, first recorded in English in an 1819 guidebook to Brazil and popularised in movies of the 1930s, comes via the Haitian Creole word zonbi and Caribbean French zombi, denoting an animated corpse, a staple of voodoo folklore, transplanted from zumbi, fetish and n-zumbi, originally the name of a snake god, in the Kumbunu and Kikongo languages of West Africa.

De weerwolf, of wolf-man komt uit de Europese folklore. In het Frans ook wel bekend als loup-garou. Eigenlijk werden de verhalen later pas bekend, maar er zijn wel kleine aanwijzingen te vinden van verhalen rond (of voor) 1200.

The werewolf combines the ancient name of the ravenous animal – wulf, later wolf – with the Old English wer, man, which shares an origin with Latin vir (from which we get virile, manly). In the 13th century wer fell out of usage, but the compound expression survived, as it did in other Germanic languages.

For me, though, because I have studied it, and because it is the most complex, the most protean of these beings, it is the vampire whose attributes and incarnations are the most fascinating. The bat was, in Old English, until the 14th century, the bakke, related to Old Scandinavian words such as natbakka, literally ‘nightflapper.’ By 1570, however, ‘bat’, a country dialect alternative, had become the preferred form.

The bat, however, is only one version of the protean vampire. That monster’s many other incarnations are discussed elsewhere on this site.

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The venerable ancestors of our modern shapeshifters, from the classical era, are discussed in this two-part blog by Sententiae Antiquae:

Halloween is Next Week: Time for Werewolves!

The Child-Killing Lamia: What’s Really Scary on Halloween is Misogyny

Possibly the most monstrous Hallowe’en disguise of 2017 was revealed by The Poke:

https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2017/10/26/british-kids-dressing-donald-trump-halloween/#.WfHT-Gpw0jA.twitter

*One more avatar, the ghost emoji is decoded here by John Kelly:

https://blog.emojipedia.org/emojiology-ghost/

In 2022 Tim Dowling assessed the arrival and impact of Hallowe’en for the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/oct/27/its-become-a-real-monster-how-britain-fell-for-halloween

SUPERSTITIOUS? – Good luck with that

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FINGERS CROSSED

Non è vero ma ci credo (‘It’s not true but I still believe in it’) – Italian saying

 

As the light fades and the creatures of the night gather for another Hallowe’en festival, prepare your candies and cookies to placate the witch, the vampire and the ghoul, but spare a thought, too for their sinister companions. Those cats, bats, owls and spiders are traditional symbols of misfortune in their own right and part of an ancient system of beliefs that still persists in the popular imagination all across our continent. If a black cat crosses your path in any part of mainland Europe (apart, oddly, from Normandy where tortoiseshells are feared), you must expect bad luck to follow. Only in Great Britain is the opposite thought to be true. The cat’s power for good or ill is said by some to derive from the fact that in Ancient Egypt it was sacred; others more convincingly point to its role as the European witch’s familiar in mediaeval times. The bones of bats are carried as protection against evil in Greece, though, awkwardly, in that country killing a bat will put a curse on the perpetrator. Spiders are lucky in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, in Finland if you kill one it will rain the next day. In Slovenia spiders are only unlucky on Monday mornings. As for the night-haunting owl, for centuries an omen of doom, according to French superstition, if a woman catches sight of one during her pregnancy, she is guaranteed to give birth to a girl. Each hoot of the owl, a Welsh tradition maintains, marks a local girl losing her virginity.

Inanimate objects of course can also figure in superstitious beliefs. Horseshoes are hung above the doorway in Britain and France for protection, though in the former they open upwards to contain the luck, in the latter they point downwards to decant the luck on those passing through. Breaking a mirror – symbolising not just one’s image but one’s soul – is everywhere regarded as highly unfortunate. (The seven years bad luck it is said to bring was probably how long it took to find the money to replace such an expensive item three or four hundred years ago). In the same way touching or knocking on wood, perhaps a hangover from pagan tree-hugging or clutching religious relics, wards off evil, while sneezing must be accompanied by a blessing and spitting and throwing salt over your (in most cultures, left) shoulder will keep malignant spirits at bay.

Other beliefs are particular to one nation, and pretty peculiar, too. In Turkey you mustn’t chew chewing gum at night as it will have turned into the flesh of the dead. Italians think seeing a nun is unlucky, Ukrainians a priest, but only before midday. Germans dread seeing old ladies in the morning; in Iceland knitting on the doorstep prolongs the winter, while in Norway knitting your boyfriend a sweater will drive him into the arms of another. In Belgium picking poppies attracts lightning, Danes throw broken dishes at their neighbours at New Year, in Holland you mustn’t sing at the dinner table. In the UK hearing a cuckoo before breakfast used to signal bad luck all that day; hearing it while resting in your bed could be fatal. Avoid bird droppings on your shoulder at all costs if you are Lithuanian, otherwise they are lucky – and in Spain never put a hat on a bed, unless you are a priest administering the last rites.

Many of the theories put forward to explain superstitions are as comically far-fetched as the beliefs themselves. The idea that opening an umbrella indoors is unlucky, it is claimed, comes either from the fact that Christians disapproved of hieroglyphics showing Pharaoh’s sunshade or from the shape it makes which symbolises a broken roof. We may prefer to think that opening huge Victorian umbrellas could easily put out an eye if done in enclosed and crowded spaces – even today’s telescopic versions can take us by surprise. Walking under ladders is almost universally advised against (Russia is apparently the exception), on the grounds that the ladder leaning against a wall represents the gallows, the Holy Trinity or even – the appeal to Ancient Egypt again – the malign power of the pyramid. Sceptics point to the more prosaic possibility of a paint pot, a painter or even the thing itself falling onto one’s head. Coincidentally or not, ladder-carrying chimney sweeps are thought to be lucky in many European countries: in the UK seeing one on your wedding day guarantees lasting happiness while in Germany a model of a sweep fixed to the roof as a weather vane brings good fortune to the household beneath. If you search the internet for an explanation you will be told that William the Conqueror permitted sweeps to wear top hats (William reigned from 1066!), that George II of England – some accounts have George III – invited a sweep to his wedding after he calmed a ferocious dog, or that an unnamed woman saved a falling sweep who gratefully proposed marriage and was accepted. To modern eyes neither the dirty, underpaid sweeps of yesteryear nor their hapless assistants, the ‘climbing boys’ as young as seven who cleaned inside tall chimneys, appear very fortunate. A more subtle explanation would be that the sweep was associated with the hearth, the focus of the family, and with coal which the Roma among others considered a sign of wealth. The last word, though, must go to a present-day German chimney sweep, Heiko Kirmis: they bring good fortune

“because they prevent fires and carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Three centuries ago the philosopher Voltaire was a famous disapprover, opining that “superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy: the mad daughter of a wise mother.”
But whether or not superstitions make sense is really not the point, says Parisian musician Justin Chambord. “They add a sense of enchantment, a tinge of magic to everyday life. Negotiating all the banal frustrations of a typical day becomes a sort of adventure when you are dodging ladders, crossing your fingers, knocking on wood and fingering your St Christopher medallion.” For retired Slovenian manager Petra Mlakar, though, the colourful folklore of which superstitions are a part is a hangover from a primitive past with no relevance to modern realities. “Our parents’ and grandparents’ lives were ruled by dozens, if not hundreds of superstitions but almost nobody remembers them now.” Certainly beliefs change: the fireflies which flicker at the edge of Slovene forests in early summer used to be feared as they were thought to be the souls of dead relatives. Nowadays, for teenagers at least, they signify luck in romantic relationships.

The commonsense explanation of superstitions is that they date from a time when most humans were at the mercy of their environment. In pre-modern peasant societies the average fearful person was a helpless victim of the seasons, prey to natural disasters, disease, random persecution by the rich and powerful – not to mention witches, ghosts and demons. One’s destiny was not under one’s control and an appeal to the supernatural was the only solution.

But for citizens of the ultra-complex, accelerated societies of today, struggling with modern technology, information overload and economic uncertainty, anxiety levels are, or are perceived to be, at an all-time high, while our own ability to influence the wider world is still in doubt. Real and irrational fears persist and the OCD-like behaviour that they trigger mean that many of us still reach for magical remedies, whether we truly believe in them or not. Surveys show an astonishingly high level of superstitious behaviour – in one 86% of respondents confessed to some sort of private ritual or wish-fulfilment act, while 15% of trained scientists admitted to a fear of the number 13.

Scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that superstitious behaviour is linked to high levels of anxiety, but some, slightly less predictably, have suggested that ‘magical’ rituals work, others that superstitious people are actually more fortunate. Research has confirmed what we know: that sportsmen and women and students, with their mascots, lucky socks and pre-performance rituals are particularly prone to superstition. Both groups are of course engaged in high-stakes activities where luck can sometimes make all the difference.

In a 2003 study by the British Association for the Advancement of Science the aptly named Professor Richard Wiseman found that people used superstition to manufacture their own luck, but that this could be good or bad depending on their attitude. Those who followed practices thought to create good luck – touching wood and crossing fingers, for instance – actually experienced it while those who believed in unlucky numbers, broken mirrors and open umbrellas were measurably less lucky in their lives. A 2010 survey by the University of Cologne in Germany found that subjects could be persuaded that a random ‘lucky’ object, a ball for instance, would help them and this then significantly improved their performance in tasks involving memory and motor skills. Reliance on the completely spurious ‘charm’ boosted concentration and confidence in individuals and teams allowed to keep their charms scored better than teams denied them.

When you stop and think about it, though, it really is rather unlikely that wearing lucky underpants to an interview (in Serbia they must be worn inside-out) is going to land you the job. Nor is it objectively probable that avoiding the cracks between the paving stones or putting shoes on in the right order is going to result in a successful day, that kissing the fuselage before takeoff or choosing a special seat number on the plane will make your journey any safer. How can Friday 13th be unlucky for some nationalities while for Spaniards and Greeks it’s Tuesday 13th, for Italians the 17th? Why on earth should wearing green bring misfortune, yet wearing polka dots on New Year’s Day (as some French ladies assert) have the opposite effect?

However rational we try to be, the urge to exert some control over our little corner of the universe by any means possible can be irresistible. Why tempt fate? Better to be on the safe side and keep your rabbit’s foot keyring with you, even though no-one has ever explained that particular choice of charm. Search for a four-leaf clover (if Polish you will eat it when you find it), or you can always buy one online for around $25. After all, in the words of US author Judith Viorst, “Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational – but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?”

 

Don’t you know it’s bad luck to be superstitious?

Thank your lucky stars if you aren’t!

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A version of this article first appeared in Reader’s Digest magazine

On the origin of the s-word itself:

“Superstition”: an unlucky etymology?

And from the British Psychological Society in May 2022, a podcast on the psychology of superstitions:

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2022/05/13/episode-30-the-psychology-of-superstitions/