Wishbone Tradition: Where It Comes From, What It Means and How to Break It Right
What the wishbone is, what history actually shows about the custom, which origin stories are unproven, and how to dry and break one fairly.
Breaking the wishbone is one of the most familiar small rituals of an American Thanksgiving, and one of the least examined. This guide explains what the bone is, what the history actually shows, which popular origin stories are unproven, and how to dry and break one properly. It does not promise that the longer piece makes a wish come true.
Contents
The wishbone is a bird's furcula, the forked bone formed by its fused collarbones. In the custom, two people each hook a finger around one arm of the dried bone and pull; whoever ends up with the larger piece gets to make a wish, though some families reverse the rule. The pulling custom is documented in England from the early seventeenth century, when the bone was called the merrythought; the name wishbone is recorded from 1860, and the custom became attached to the American Thanksgiving turkey. Popular claims that it began with the Etruscans or Romans are not supported by clear evidence, and nothing shows the wish itself is granted.
In 1455 Johannes Hartlieb described people reading a dried goose breastbone to predict the coming winter.
Source/tradition: Hartlieb, The Book of All Forbidden Arts (1455/56); Wikipedia, Furcula
Two people pulling a bird's forked bone for a wish is documented in England from the early seventeenth century, when it was called the merrythought.
Source/tradition: Oxford English Dictionary; Opie & Tatem, A Dictionary of Superstitions (1989)
The name wishbone for the custom is recorded from 1860.
Source/tradition: Oxford English Dictionary; Wikipedia, Furcula
The Etruscans stroked dried hen bones for wishes and the Romans began breaking them.
Source/tradition: Popular modern origin story without clear ancient source
Whoever holds the larger piece after the break will have their wish granted.
Source/tradition: English and American household custom
Families dry the bone for several days, agree on a rule, and keep the wish secret.
Source/tradition: Contemporary American Thanksgiving practice
Winning the wishbone makes a wish come true or brings luck.
Source/tradition: No evidence; game and belief
VERIFIED = verifiable in scientific or official sources · TRADITIONAL = historically or culturally recorded · LIVED PRACTICE = widely practiced, experiential knowledge · NOT PROVEN = spiritual interpretation, not scientifically established.
Quick answer
The wishbone is a bird's furcula, the forked bone formed by its fused collarbones. In the custom, two people each hook a finger around one arm of the dried bone and pull; whoever ends up with the larger piece, including the joint, gets to make a wish that comes true, though some families reverse the rule. The pulling custom is documented in England from the early seventeenth century, when the bone was called the merrythought; the name wishbone is recorded from 1860, and the custom became attached to the American Thanksgiving turkey. Popular claims that it began with the Etruscans or Romans are not supported by clear evidence, and nothing shows the wish itself is granted.
What the wishbone actually is
The wishbone is the furcula, a thin V-shaped bone in the chest of birds, formed where the two collarbones fuse. In flight it works like a spring, flexing with each wingbeat. In a roast turkey or chicken it sits at the front of the breast, just below the neck, and it is easy to miss when carving.
The bone is light, strong when fresh and brittle once dried. That change is the whole mechanics of the custom: a green wishbone bends and splits unpredictably, a dry one snaps cleanly. Many theropod dinosaurs had a furcula too, one of the anatomical links between them and modern birds.
The custom in short
After the meal, the wishbone is set aside and left to dry, usually for a few days. Two people then each take one arm of the V, often with the little finger or index finger, make a silent wish and pull. The bone breaks. The person left holding the larger piece, the one with the joint still attached, has won, and their wish is said to come true. They are not supposed to tell anyone what it was.
Beyond that core, almost every detail varies by family: who gets to pull, whether you may use your whole hand, whether you must close your eyes, whether the loser gets a second wish. Those variations are part of what makes the custom feel like a family's own.
Where the wishbone tradition comes from
Online, the wishbone's history is usually told like this: the Etruscans of ancient Italy kept chickens as oracles, dried the hen's collarbone in the sun and stroked it to make wishes; the Romans, short of bones, started pulling them in two, giving us the phrase “lucky break”; the English inherited the custom; the Pilgrims brought it to America. It is a tidy story, and it is repeated by magazines and food sites every November.
The trouble is that its early links are not documented. There are ancient references to divination with chickens, but no clear ancient source describes the Etruscan wishbone ritual as told, and there is no evidence that “lucky break” comes from pulling wishbones; the phrase appears in the twentieth century and is most simply read as a turn of luck. The Pilgrims, for their part, left no record of breaking bones at the harvest meal of 1621.
What the record does show is more modest and more interesting. In 1455 the Bavarian physician Johannes Hartlieb described people examining a dried goose breastbone to predict whether the coming winter would be severe or mild, wet or dry. And in England, from the early seventeenth century, two people pulled the forked bone of a bird and the one with the bigger piece made a wish. At that time the bone was called the merrythought.
Why merrythought?
The older English name is usually explained as a bone that brings a merry thought: the wish, or the pleasant anticipation of it. The word is recorded from the early 1600s.
It survived in Britain into the twentieth century, and some British cookbooks still use it for the bone when describing how to carve a bird.
From merrythought to wishbone: how it reached Thanksgiving
The American name wishbone is recorded from 1860, just before Thanksgiving became a national holiday. Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned for years for a national day of thanks, and in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving. The roast turkey became the center of the meal over the following decades, and the turkey's large wishbone was the natural candidate for a custom English settlers already knew.
In many American families the wishbone is now more closely tied to Thanksgiving than to any other meal. Some families save it for Christmas, letting it dry for a month, and some keep a whole row of dried wishbones on a windowsill from years of holidays. The custom has also crossed into wedding and baby-shower favors, and plastic replica wishbones are sold so every guest gets a turn.
If you are building a whole holiday around gratitude, our Thanksgiving gratitude ritual works well alongside the wishbone.
Long piece, short piece: the rules families argue about
The most common rule is that the larger piece wins. But families disagree, and several variants are widely reported.
Common wishbone rules and what they say
| Rule | What it says | How common |
|---|---|---|
| Larger piece wins | Whoever holds the joint gets the wish | The usual American rule |
| Smaller piece wins | The short piece is the lucky one | Reported in some families and older sources |
| Even break | If it splits evenly, both wishes come true | Widespread family variant |
| Larger piece marries first | The winner will be the first of the two to marry | Older courtship variant |
| Secret wish | Tell the wish and it will not come true | Almost universal |
None of these rules has any greater authority than the others. If your family has one, keep it; if not, choose one before you pull, not after.
Before the wish: the wishbone as a weather oracle
Before the wishbone was about wishes, the breastbone of a bird was about weather. Hartlieb's fifteenth-century description of reading a goose bone for the coming winter is one of the earliest records, and the practice traveled with German-speaking immigrants to Pennsylvania and the Midwest, where reading the color of a goose breastbone for the winter ahead is reported in local folklore well into the twentieth century. Darker or blotchy patches meant a colder winter; a pale bone meant a mild one.
It belongs to the same family of autumn weather oracles as the persimmon seed and the woolly worm. Our guide to reading a persimmon seed covers the Southern side of that tradition, and the buckeye in your pocket another small American luck charm.
How to dry and break a wishbone
The most common reason a wishbone breaks badly is that it was not dry enough. A few simple steps help.
When you carve the bird, find the wishbone at the neck end of the breast and ease it out with a small knife, keeping both arms intact. Scrape off any remaining meat and rinse it in warm water. Then let it dry. Most families leave it on a windowsill or the top of the refrigerator for three days to a week, until it is pale and snaps rather than bends. Some speed things up by leaving it in a warm, switched-off oven after baking; if you do, do not forget it is there the next time you preheat.
When you pull, each person should hold the arm at the same distance from the joint, with the same finger, and pull steadily rather than jerking. That keeps it fair and makes a clean break more likely.
Temple Tip
Before you break the bone, take a moment to decide what the wish actually is. Many people freeze and wish for something vague. Say it silently to yourself once while the bone is still whole, then pull. If you win, write the wish down that night and date it, and open the note next Thanksgiving. Whether or not it came true, you will learn what you really wanted a year ago.
Quiz: what kind of wisher are you?
Four light questions to find your wishing style and what to do with the wish after the break.
Voices from practice
Families who break the wishbone every year often say the custom matters less for the wish than for the moment: two people, usually a child and an adult, face to face and laughing. Many describe being allowed to pull for the first time as a small rite of passage.
People who save wishbones through the year frequently report keeping a line of them on a windowsill as a kind of family calendar.
Practitioners who work with intention often describe using the wishbone as a threshold: the break marks the start of working toward a goal rather than waiting for it.
What we don't promise
We do not promise that the longer piece, the shorter piece or an even break grants a wish, brings luck, predicts a marriage or forecasts the winter. None of that has been shown, and the custom was always as much a game as a belief. What we can say is that the wishbone custom is well documented in England from the seventeenth century and in America from the nineteenth, that its older weather-reading roots are recorded as far back as 1455, and that it remains one of the most widely shared small rituals in the country.
We also do not repeat the Etruscan origin story as fact. It may contain a grain of something ancient, but as usually told it is not backed by sources.
Practically: how to work with this
A simple way to keep the custom, from the carving board to the wish.
- Save the bone when you carve. Ease it out whole from the neck end of the breast and clean off the meat.
- Dry it properly. Three days to a week on a windowsill or in a warm, switched-off oven until it snaps rather than bends.
- Agree on the rule. Larger piece, smaller piece or even break: decide before you pull.
- Make the wish first. Say it silently once while the bone is whole. Keep it to yourself.
- Pull fairly. Same finger, same distance from the joint, steady pressure.
- Give the wish an evening. Write it down, light a candle for it if you like, and put the note somewhere you will find it next year.
From our shelf
Good Fortune Spell Candle (8 oz)
A wishbone lasts a second; a wish is worth more attention than that. Light this hand-poured luck candle on the night you break the bone and let the wish have an evening of its own. Ships within 3 business days, from $18.95.
More in luck, fortune & success and abundance & prosperity.
Frequently asked questions
What is a wishbone?
The wishbone is a bird's furcula, the V-shaped bone formed by its fused collarbones. In the custom, two people pull the dried bone apart and the one with the larger piece makes a wish.
Who gets the wish, the long or short piece?
In most American families the larger piece, with the joint attached, wins the wish. Some families reverse it, and in many an even break means both wishes come true.
Where did the wishbone tradition come from?
Pulling a bird's forked bone for a wish is documented in England from the early seventeenth century, when it was called the merrythought. The word wishbone appears in 1860. Claims of Etruscan or Roman origins are popular but not backed by clear evidence.
How long should a wishbone dry before breaking?
Usually three days to a week at room temperature, until it is pale and brittle. A bone that still bends will not break cleanly.
Did the Pilgrims break the wishbone?
There is no record of it at the 1621 harvest meal. The custom came to America with English settlers, but its link to Thanksgiving turkey developed later, in the nineteenth century.
Does the phrase lucky break come from wishbones?
Probably not. The link is often claimed, but the phrase appears in the twentieth century and is most simply explained as a break in one's luck.
Sources & further reading
- “Furcula” (section on the wishbone custom). Wikipedia, English edition (accessed September 2026), with its cited sources.
- Hartlieb, Johannes. The Book of All Forbidden Arts, manuscript, 1455/1456.
- Opie, Iona, and Moira Tatem (eds.). A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 (entry: merrythought).
- Oxford English Dictionary, entries “merrythought” and “wishbone” (online edition).
- Lincoln, Abraham. Proclamation of Thanksgiving, October 3, 1863. National Archives / Abraham Lincoln Online.
- Smith, Andrew F. The Turkey: An American Story. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
- Hand, Wayland D. (ed.). Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina (Frank C. Brown Collection, vols. 6–7). Durham: Duke University Press, 1961–1964.
