The forked breastbone of a bird. In 1455 Johannes Hartlieb wrote of people reading the weather in a goose’s breastbone. By the early 1600s, two people pulled it apart between them, and it had become a wishbone.
Record, Folk and Modern are kept apart, and each one carries its source.
In 1455 Johannes Hartlieb wrote that people read the coming weather from a goose’s breastbone. It is the earliest record in our files of this bone being used to look ahead, long before it was pulled for a wish.
To verify: Hartlieb’s own text: where he wrote it, and his exact words
By the early 1600s, two people would pull the bone between them, each holding one arm, for a wish. From a sign of the weather to a wish: that is the turn this small bone took in the record.
To verify: The 17th-century text that first mentions pulling the bone, and where it was written
We draw the wishbone whole, before anyone has pulled it. In silver or on a card, it keeps the wish unmade: what it is, and who gets it, is up to you. We make no promise that a wish comes true.
