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Hello all,

I’ve been lurking on this list for a number of years. I’m a doctoral candidate at Ohio State, studying shamelessness in Anglo-Saxon England, but this is a non-dissertation query. I’m trying to find early primary sources that refer to crossed fingers, particularly as used to avert the consequences of lying, though instances of more general warding, wishing, and blessing would also be welcome. Not the sign of the cross, unless it seems relevant, just crossed fingers.

I haven’t been able to find any scholarly articles in the usual places (university library, WorldCat, IMB, L’Année Philologique). All I’ve been able to find are poorly sourced claims in Wikipedia and various internet articles that seem to trace back to a couple paragraphs in Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things by Charles Panati (infamously credulous of the spoon-bending psychic Uri Geller), which is also seemingly unsourced and quite fanciful. I include it here to establish the state of the field, at least in the popular presses.

He claims the gesture was originally a two-person operation:

The popular gesture grew out of the pagan belief that a cross was a symbol of perfect unity; and that its point of intersection marked the dwelling place of beneficent spirits. A wish made on a cross was supposed to be anchored steadfastly at the cross’s intersection until that desire was realized. The superstition was popular among many early European cultures. […]

Originally, in crossing fingers for good luck, the index finger of a well-wisher was placed over the index finger of the person expressing the wish, the two fingers forming a cross. While one person wished, the other offered mental support to expedite the desire. As time elapsed, the rigors of the custom eased, so that a person could wish without the assistance of an associate. It sufficed merely to cross the index and the middle fingers to form an X, the Scottish cross of St. Andrew.

Is there anything solid in this confection? I could imagine an icthys finger gesture like he’s describing, but I’ve never heard of one.

Thanks for any leads!

All best,

Steve Barker