Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.06.2019, Qupperneq 8

You are likely very familiar with the old
superstition about “knocking on wood”
or “touching wood”—rapping your
knuckles lightly on a table or any piece
of wood in order to avoid a bad outcome
for a specific hope (e.g. “We should get
our summer bonuses today, knock on
wood”).
Icelanders take that to a new level,
though. It’s not enough to simply knock
on wood; you’re also supposed to say
“sjö níu þrettán” (literally “seven nine
thirteen”) as you knock.
This particular superstition is so
common that many Icelanders do it
without realising its origins.
There are numerous explanations for
where “knocking on wood” came from:
everything from it being a reference to
touching the cross of Christ, to waking
up good spirits in the wood to fight evil
spirits that might undo your hopes,
and even to knocking on a table being a
common way for abbots to scold boast-
ful monks at the dinner table.
The use of the numbers seven, nine
and thirteen are similarly a blend of
Christian and pagan origins. Seven has
long been considered a magic number,
stemming from adding three (a trian-
gle) to four (a square), with their respec-
tive shapes representing the spirit
world and the material world, or possi-
bly stemming from the number of days
in a quarter lunar cycle. Nine is of course
the product of three times three, the
number of the Holy Trinity. Thirteen
having some (usually evil) supernatu-
ral connotations does not, as popularly
believed, come from Jesus and his 12
disciples; it’s even older than that, going
back to the old Roman calendar which
used 12 months of equal length and then
one extra month added every six years.
Just as Leap Day is a mild annoyance
for some, the Leap Month was an even
greater inconvenience, and led to 13
being associated with ill fortune.
This being the case, sjö níu þret-
tán is really just a Superstition Value
Pack; mashing together several differ-
ent superstitions at once in an effort to
defend one’s best laid plans from being
destroyed by the forces of chaos. It’s
popularity is pretty interesting, given
that Iceland is the home of the “þetta
reddast” (“it’ll all work out in the end”)
guiding philosophy.
Icelandic
Superstitions
“Sjö Níu Þrettán”—Seven, Nine, Thirteen
8 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09— 2019
LÓABORATORIUM
Unlucky for some
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THE
GRAPEVINE
PLAYLIST
The must-hear music of the issue
„Te
ki
nn
á

Be
in
ið
“
JUST SAYINGS
This saying
is not really
that old. It
o r i g i n a t e d
at Akureyri
Junior College
and means to
tell someone
o f f , o f t e n
b y h i g h e r
a u t h o r i t y .
T h e d i r e c t
translation of the saying—which in
Icelandic would be used “Að taka einh-
vern á beinið”—is “to force someone on
the bone.” So what’s with the bone, you
ask? Well, the former headmaster of the
school had a whalebone that could be
used as a chair. A really uncomfortable
chair, may I add. So when the headmas-
ter was telling those poor kids off, they
were supposed to sit on the bone while
listening to him, as an extra punish-
ment. So there you have it, to tell some-
one off in Icelandic, basically means
forcing you to sit on a whalebone while
being scolded. VG
ICELANDIC
SUPERSTITIONS
Words:
Andie Fontaine
Photo:
Adobe Stock
First
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