February 24, 2026
Knock knock—who’s superstitious?
The history of knocking on wood
Is knocking on wood ancient magic or a kids’ game? The internet can’t decide
TLDR: A historian suggests knocking on wood might be a 19th‑century kids’ game, not ancient magic. Commenters clash over pagan roots vs playground origins, shout out “tocca ferro,” and drop ’90s Bosstones nostalgia—turning a tiny habit into a big culture debate.
Benjamin Breen’s charming dive into the secret life of “knock on wood” lit up the comments with equal parts folklore fever and fact-checker fury. He shares how his toddler learned the ritual from her Iranian grandma, then drops the kicker: folklorist Steve Roud thinks it might trace to a 19th‑century English kids’ tag game—cue the drama. The romantics swooned over tree-spirits and the wood of the Cross; the skeptics swung in like, “Playground rules, not pagan roots,” waving Roud’s receipts and the Wikipedia summary. Nostalgia hit hard: one early voice begged for a Mighty Mighty Bosstones nod, and ’90s kids gleefully quoted “I never had to knock on wood.” Global flexers piled on with local versions—Italians yelling tocca ferro, Norwegians bank i bordet, Indonesians amit-amit—turning the thread into a world-tour of luck hacks. Then came the tech twist: Breen’s line that “machines can’t learn this from text” sparked a mini flame war—some crowed that AI should stay out of superstition, others wanted charts tracking luck spikes post-knock. Parents praised the “borderland between nature and nurture,” while Wikipedia warriors argued absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. Verdict: a cozy ritual became a culture clash—and it was very fun to read.
Key Points
- •Knocking on wood is a widely observed superstition with variants across many countries, including Bulgaria, Georgia, Indonesia, and Norway.
- •Written historical evidence for the practice is limited, complicating efforts to trace its origins.
- •Folklorist Steve Roud doubts pagan or Christian origin explanations and proposes an origin in the 19th‑century English children’s game Tig-touch-wood.
- •Wikipedia cites Roud’s conclusion, contributing to the online spread of the 19th‑century origin claim.
- •Roud’s original text is ambivalent, urging further examination of European forms; the author suggests data visualizations (e.g., via Claude Code) to aid research.