h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was taught as a child that if you loose something, you should take a pin in your left hand, turn round three times and stab the air. This apparently stabs the devil who has hidden whatever it is that you've lost. Once you've pinned the devil, you'll easily find whatever it is that you couldn't find earlier.

Has anyone else heard of this?

Does anyone know where it originates?

I've never heard of "pinning the devil", but there is a long association between turning around three times and the devil. In many places there is a tradition that if you run three times around some famous landmark in an anti-clockwise direction (widdershins), you will meet the devil.

I've never heard of that.
But I know that if you put on an iron shirt
You can chase the devil out of earth.

There seem to be traditions that associate iron with the fairies as well - they don't like it. Perhaps the fairies are a memory of the original bronze-age people that lived in the UK and Ireland before the Iron-age Celts arrived. The new iron weapons were good for killing the indigenous people, who would have been small in comparison to the invaders. It is easy to see how a tradition of driving out the devil with iron could start, although I've no evidence for it.

It sounds a bit similar to throwing a pinch salt over your shoulder if you spill some. Traditionally it was thought that a devil sat on your left shoulder and an angel on your right so you are throwing salt in his eye for making you spill it in the first place. I have never heard of pinning him though. Plus if the pin is in your left hand and you turn around don't you end up stabbing your angel?

The Catholic way to find missing stuff is to ask St. Christoper (I think), who's the patron saint of lost things. [wonders if there's a guide entry on patron saints....]

ttfn


Otto

St Anthony - the patron saint of lost things? St Jude is the patron saint of lost causes. St Christopher is the patron saint of travellers.

B

I was close!

I had a feeling you'd know, Ben


Otto

You would be amazed at what I don't now, though Otto....!

Ben

There's also a patron saint of dysenteri.

A devil on your left shoulder and an angel on your right? I thought it was cartoons that had created that image.

But where would the cartoons get the idea? *shrugs*
*is complained at loudly by various supernatural beings*

Hmmm, their imagination? The same place the "light bulb floating over head" came from?