Left

From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project

Left is a relative term, depending upon which direction you are facing, and is in opposition to the right, thereby forming a dichotomy, represented as twin powers in some traditions of witchcraft. However, besides its directional attributes, it has certain connotations with loss (as in left behind) and malevolence (as in left-handed path). Some have postulated that this is because when facing the prime direction of north the sun appears to set on the left, which evokes the virtues of darkness and all that it symbolises.

The word left comes from the Old English lyft, meaning "weak", "foolish", "useless" and "worthless"; thus things to be left behind. Others have linked the root of the word left with words meaning "crooked" and "twisted", which in part has given rise to the ascription of left-handed things to unlucky, irregular, illicit and suspicious virtues. Indeed, it was once common in Britain to train left-handedness out of children, forcing them to write and perform other tasks with the preferred right hand.

In France the word for left is gauche, which means both "left" and "awkward" or "clumsy", and the Inuit believed that every left-handed person was a sorcerer. In the Romany language the word for left is bongo, which means "crooked" or "an evil person". Others are as follows:

• Mancino (Italian for left, also decietful)
• Linkisch (German for left, also awkward)
• Na levo (Russian for left, also sneaky)
• Zurdo (Spanish for left, also malicious)
• Vasenkatinen (Finnish for left, also implies something backwards that needs fixing)
• Levak (Russian for left, also slang for homosexual)
• Kejt (Danish, also wrong or awkward)

The unlucky and suspicious virtues of the left side are compounded by the Latin for left, which is sinistral, giving us our modern sinister; this meaning "left" and "unfavourable" or "contrary" at once. Accordingly is the left associated with those things that are evil, malicious, contrary, weaker, slower etc, and especially linked in the popular consciousness with malevolent witchcraft and black-magic. The Greeks practiced a form of augury whereby they would face the north and watch for omens, and when these came from the left-hand side, especially when an unlucky bird, they portended misfortune, harm, and adversity.

See also Widdershins