These days spitting is usually regarded as both unhygienic and uncouth, but spitting hasn’t always had such a grimy reputation. In the Gospel of John, Jesus spits on the ground and mixes his saliva with the dirt to make mud, which he applies to the eyes of a blind man and restores his sight. In ancient Greece spitting was a way to counteract the advances of malevolent spirits and in AD 77 pliny the Elder wrote ‘We are in the habit of spitting to repel contagion.’
It does seem to have been viewed as a superstitious act even in those days though, as the ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus, writing his study of human motivations The Characters, includes in his description of ‘The Superstitious Man’: ‘If he sees a maniac or an epileptic man, he will shudder and spit into his bosom.’ Maniacs and epileptics were in those days thought to be possessed by demons, and the condition was believed to be catching.
Spitting on to the bosom is a custom that still exists in Greece and Cyprus, although over time it became unnecessary to actually spit to evoke the protection it offered and the sound ‘ptew’ was used instead. ‘Ptew, Ptew mi me matiasis’ is still commonly recited in Greece to repel the Evil Eye (see The Evil Eye) and can be roughly translated as ‘Spit, spit, I spit on myself to protect myself from the Evil Eye.’ The most superstitious will still lift the clothing away from their chest at the neck and imitate spitting onto their chest.
Across the world fishermen traditionally spit into their nets to ensure they get a good catch. In the UK and America boxers spit on their knuckles before a fight and pretending to spit on each hand before tackling any difficult task is common in many cultures. The Irish had a custom of spitting on horses to keep them safe from fairies, who were said to be repelled by anything unclean. The fairies were wrong, however, as modern science has discovered that saliva is in fact an excellent antiseptic, so when we say we’re ‘licking our wounds’ we probably really should be.