Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Would you like to make a wish?

Well here's a funny little thing to believe. Does breaking off the larger side of a "wishbone" grant you a wish? Well for a long time the stories have made us believe so.
The Romans would kill birds and rip them to shreds before consuming a meal. As they would de-feather the bird and start pulling the meat off the bones, they would pull off the collar bone and set it to dry in the sun. After the meal the bone should be dry enough to rub it for luck and a wish. Which is where the name "wishbone" comes from. After the Romans spread this idea to the western world, people began to fight over the idea that, people would only get one wish out of a single clavicle. People broke the clavicle in half and whoever got the bigger half was allowed to make the wish. So next Thanksgiving make sure you get the clavicle before anyone else in order to make a wish!

4 comments:

  1. my parents always made me and by siblings do this i knew it would not grant any wishes but they always wanted us to break a wish bone it got kind of annoying

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  2. This is an interesting post to me. I always use to break a wishbone with my siblings growing up. I know when I was younger I would actually think the wish would come true but of course it never did. It is interesting how it came from the Romans and then spread to western culture.

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  3. I like this superstition and when we sit down to have dinner on thanksgiving the two things that we fight over in my family are football and who gets to have the wishbone. Its still funny to watch now with my younger siblings.

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  4. This is a very interesting post. Like many other people, obviously, our family also used to pull sides on a wishbone. I never really knew, or thought of, why this superstition existed so this is very interesting.

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