Since I covered ankle superstitions, it is only fitting that I would also cover superstitions and strange beliefs about the wrist. It is almost as if an occult hand made me want to cover such strange strings of folklore from the past, and yet here we are. Enjoy!
1. Rheumatism
The most popular wrist superstitions in folklore involve rheumatism, and just about anything tied or worn around the wrist is said to cure it.
For example, tying a piece of red flannel around either wrist is a common backwoods way to “cure” rheumatism.
More recently, and is often seen on television and internet ads, a copper wire or bracelet worn around the right wrist is believed to cure rheumatism. (Source: Superstitions: 10,000 You Really Need by William Carroll)
2. Archery and Shooting
Animal hair has been and still is used in a lot of charms around the world, and the U.S. is not exception.
In folk magic, it is believed tying a black horse hair (tail) around your wrist will improve your aim. No wrist is referenced, but one can assume you should tie the hair around your dominant hand’s wrist. (Source: Superstitions: 10,000 You Really Need by William Carroll)
3. Strip of Corpse String
Now that the two common wrist superstitions are covered, let’s take a deeper dive into things people would tie around their wrists.
The following love charm was known as “Drinial Agus Thorial” (sometimes spelled with an “m” – “Drimial / possibly of Welsh origin):
“When a girl wishes to gain the love of a man and make him marry her, the dreadful spell is used called, ‘Drinial Agus Thorial.’ At dead of night she and an accomplice go to a church, exhume a newly buried corpse, and take a strip of skin from the head to the heel. This is wound around the girl’s body with a solemn invocation to the devil for his help. After she had worn it for a day and a night, she watches her opportunity, and ties it around the wrist of the sleeping man whom she desires, during which process the name of God must not be mentioned. When he wakes, the man is bound by a spell and is forced to marry the cruel and evil harpy.” (Source: Encyclopædia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World (Volume I) by Cora Linn Daniels)
4. To Remember Something Lost
Another old superstition tells us to spit on the inner side of a wrist if we want to remember something lost or forgotten. (Source: Encyclopædia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World (Volume I) by Cora Linn Daniels)
5. Bastard Lore
A bastard cannot wrap his fingers around his wrist. (Source: Numerous sources.)
6. To Dream of True Love
This next wrist charm comes from Chestertown, Maryland:
“After getting ready for bed in silence, take a ball of string and wind about the wrist, repeating —
I wind, I wind,
This night to find,
Who my true love’s to be;
The color of his eyes,
The color of his hair,
And the night he’ll be married to me.”
(Source: Current Superstitions: Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk by Fanny D. Bergen)
7. Minty Fresh Wrist
A sprig of mint, tied around the wrist, was believed to ward off infection. (Source: Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland by Francesca Wilde.)
8. Drown the Bad One
Finally, let’s take a look at the following brutal superstition and how it was dealt with. Originally published in 1875:
“A superstition obtains in the southern provinces that if three children appear at a birth, one of them will eventually become a noted rebel, and it hence becomes a question of ‘Which is Papa going to keep?’ if the luckless father would avoid that direst of Chinese curses, a thoroughly bad son. To decide the question, a ‘wise man’ is sent for, by whose directions the three infants are taken into a perfectly dark room. The wise man then takes three pieces of string, each of a different color, such as white, red, and black, and entering the room ties one of these pieces of string round a wrist of each baby. The one that is found when brought out into the light to have the red string on its wrist is drowned like a puppy.” (Source: The China Review, Or, Notes and Queries on the Far East, Volume 3 by Nicholas Belfield Dennys.)
