English
Adverb
- anticlockwise,
counter-clockwise.
- It is unlucky to walk widdershins around a church.
Etymology
Widdershins (sometimes withershins, widershins or
widderschynnes) is a word which (originally) meant
in a direction opposite to the usual. The Oxford English
Dictionary's entry cites the earliest uses of the word from 1513,
where it was found in the phrase widdersyns start my hair, i.e my
hair stood on end.
The use of the word to mean in a direction
contrary to the apparent course of the sun is also cited by the OED
from the early sixteenth century. It is cognate with the German
language widersinnig, i.e., "against" + "sense". The term
"widdershins" was especially common in Lowland
Scots, and was known in Scottish
Gaelic as tuathal, or "left-hand-wise". It uses the same root
as tuath meaning "countryside", originally "tribal-land", "folk",
"people", the opposite of widdershins is Gaelic deiseil or
right-hand-wise.
Superstition and religion
Because the sun played a highly important role in
primitive religion, to go against it was considered very bad luck
for sun-venerating traditions.
It was considered unlucky in former times in
Britain
to travel in an anticlockwise (because
anti sun wise) direction around a church and a number of folk myths
make reference to this superstition, e.g. Childe
Rowland, where the protagonist and his sister are transported
to Elfland
after his sister runs widdershins round a church. There is also a
reference to this in Dorothy
Sayers's novels The Nine
Tailors and Clouds of
Witness ("True, O King, and as this isn't a church, there's no
harm in going round it widdershins").
In contrast, in Judaism circles are
sometimes walked anticlockwise. For example: when a bride circles
her groom seven times before marriage, when dancing around the
bimah during Simchat
Torah (or when dancing in a circle at any time), or when the
Torah is
brought out of the Ark (Ark
is approached from the right, and left from the left).
This has its origins in the Beis
Hamikdash, where in order not to get in each others way, the
Priests would walk around the Altar anticlockwise while performing
their duties. When entering the Beis Hamikdash the people would
enter by one gate, and leave by another. The resulting direction of
motion was anticlockwise.
In the Eastern
Orthodox Church, however, it is normal for processions around a
church to go widdershins.
Modern usage
The word is frequently used in fiction in incantations etc, as a means of heightening atmosphere on account of the archaic and arcane nature of the word itself.In Terry
Pratchett's Discworld,
Widdershins is the opposite of Turnwise, the direction in which the
Disc rotates.
The Wiccan Rede
states "Widdershins go by wanning moon, chanting out the baneful
tune."
Widdershins is the name of the squad mage in
Sergeant Balm's squad in Steven
Erikson's The
Bonehunters.
Widdershins is the title of a Charles de
Lint book set in Newford. The title
is both literal and metaphorical. In one situation, the characters
walk widdershins around a vortex to return home from the
Otherworld. But as the book jacket says, "It's also the way people
often back slowly into the relationships that matter, the real ones
that make for life."
Widdershins is also the name of a do-it-yourself
fanzine from Mexico dealing with the Occult and some forms of
artistic ways evoking satanic and dark feelings in the minds of the
readers.
Widdershins is also the name of a pagan community
newspaper based in the Pacific Northwest, now on hiatus. It was
published eight times each year from 1995 to 2007.
Widdershins is mentioned in the movie 'The Book
of Shadows : The Blair Witch Project II' (2000).
Bön
The Bönpo in the Northern Hemisphere traditionally circumambulate (generally) in a counter-clockwise and 'widdershins' direction, that is a direction that runs counter to the apparent movement of the Sun within the sky from the vantage of ground. This runs counter to the prevalent directionality of Buddhism (in general) and orthodox Hinduism, from which Buddhism seceded. This is in keeping with the aspect and directionality of the 'Sauvastika' (Tibetan: yung-drung), sacred to the Bönpo. In the Southern Hemisphere, the Bonpo practitioner is required to elect whether the directionality of 'counter-clockwise' (deosil in the Southern Hemisphere) or running-counter to the direction of the Sun (widdershins in the Southern Hemisphere) is the key intentionality of the tradition. The resolution to this conundrum is left open to the practitioner, their 'intuitive insight' (Sanskrit: prajna) and their tradition.Notes
widdershins in Swedish:
Withershin