All over the country on Christmas Day, millions of people working in pairs will snap a bone of some species of poultry while making a wish. I’m referring, of course, to the ancient tradition of breaking a wishbone, from which it is said we get the expressions ‘need a lucky break’ and ‘never get a break’. The wishbone – or furcula (from the Latin , a two-pronged fork) – strengthens the thoracic skeleton of a bird to withstand the stresses of flight. The writer John Aubrey first recorded the custom in England in 1686. But why do we do it? How did the forked bone between the breast and neck of birds become known as a wishbone?
