Fiddling with fake furculas

Nearly 20 years ago I was researching a book about Luck. It never came to anything because I was beaten to it by Professor Richard Wiseman who wrote a great book on the subject. 

I was reminded of it today while rummaging in my office for an item. I suddenly came across a tub of fake furculas.

A furcula (as if you didn't know!) is better known as a wishbone. It's the fused collarbones found in birds. However, they're actually older than birds as they've been found in the fossil remains of theropod dinosaurs from as far back as 150 million years ago, which strengthens the argument that birds are the dinosaurs that survived. 

Notch up one more point for the Theory of Evolution.

It was the Etruscans, that mysterious Italian culture that existed before the Romans, who started the whole business of using wishbones as luck talismans. It grew out of the practice  of alectryomancy - the art of divination by chickens. 

They would draw a circle on the ground, divide it into 20 segments - one for each letter in their alphabet - and then place some food in each. By following the bird's progress around this living, clucking Ouija board a priest would note the letter order and interpret the messages. Then later, when the bird died or was sacrificed (it didn't see that coming), its entrails would be 'read' and the wishbone kept and dried. Rubbing it would then grant luck. 

Once they'd absorbed the Etruscans, the Romans started breaking the bones for luck. And it's gone on ever since, all around the world.

Here's a 1905 painting called Christmastide Divination by Konstantin Makovsky. It shows Russian folk using a chicken to foretell a marriage for a young woman.

 

 Image: Creative Commons.

But, of course, there's always only ever one wishbone per bird so, come Christmas or Sunday roast dinner (or Thanksgiving for our American chums) there's never enough furcula to go around. Someone is always going to be disappointed and luckless.

And what about the vegetarians? There's no good luck involved in pulling a carrot. 

The problem was solved back in 1999 by Seattle entrepreneur Ken Ahroni who developed a plastic wishbone that would break with the same satisfactory snap as a real one. Since then, he's sold millions of them (here's the company website).  

The vegetarians are happy. The kids are happy. Even the environmentalists are happy as they're biodegradable too. What an inspired idea. 

Ken's company even produces special edition wishbones to tie in with events like the Superbowl and Presidential elections.

But can you find them in the UK? 

Not a chance. 

I searched everywhere while I was working on the book. So, in the end, I contacted Ken to get a couple of samples and he kindly, and unexpectedly, sent me a 'gala tub' of 100. 

And now I've found them again. 

Maybe I should organise a mass public snapping to help get the country back on track?

Who's up for that?