TOI Toi Toi
The saying toi, toi, toi (initially northern German , documented since the 19th century ), which today is mostly understood as a congratulation in the sense of “May it succeed”, is based on a counter-spell against the envy of evil spirits . In order not to evoke them by congratulating them, it was also customary to add the formula “unsolicited” and to confirm the protective effect by spitting it out three times, knocking on wood or similar actions.
history
The saying "toi, toi, toi" was perhaps created as an onomatopoeic replacement for spitting out, which since the 18th century has been increasingly perceived as indecent. The expression then shared the origin of a Yiddish expression documented as "tfu, tfu, tfu" , which was used with a similar meaning in business life, for example. Another possible origin of the exclamation is a three-time, abbreviated mention of the devil. The Swabian dictionary has a saying: "No, come in 's Teu-Teu-Teufelskuchen bey him". Thirdly, an attempt was made to combine the expression with the Yiddish- Rotwelschen tof or tow (for “good”).
The custom of knocking on wood is traced back to the legend of St. Helena . After her son Constantine recognized Christianity as the new state religion , she went to the Holy Land around 300 AD and found not only "the Lord's tomb", but also the crossbar of his cross, which she then found as a relic to Constantinople . She found this by knocking on the wood lying around in large quantities since the thorough destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans .
In the theater in particular , the custom has been preserved to wish the actors success in their upcoming performance. Traditionally, this should be done over the left shoulder, not the right, and the actor should not thank them for it, because this would bring bad luck.
The phrase also found widespread use in a German hit song in the 1930s. Willy Rosen , the hit composer who was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 , composed and sang chansons for the camp cabaret while still in the concentration camp, including: “If you are not lucky / then life has no meaning. / If you're out of luck / then you slip and fall. / So I ask you, Fortuna, stay true to me, / uncalled, uncalled toi - toi - toi. "
See also
literature
- Adelgard Perkmann: called beschreien , in: Encyclopaedia of German superstition , Volume 1. Unchanged photomechanical reprint of 1927, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York in 1987, Sp 1096-1102..
- Lutz Röhrich: Lexicon of the proverbial phrases , Volume 5, Freiburg, Basel and Vienna 1999, p. 1629 f. (Lemma toi-toi-toi ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Already documented in antiquity : Pliny the Elder : Naturalis historia (The natural history): 28th book, chap. 4 (p. 481 below)
- ↑ a b c Christoph Gutknecht: Toi, toi, toi! In: Jüdische Allgemeine , March 20, 2017 ( online ).
- ^ Muses - Das Ballaststofforchester , Musischer Verein, Freunde des Musischen Gymnasium , Salzburg, (last modified) March 17, 2008, accessed June 13, 2016.