Who has the most sinister face you can think of? Dracula? Voldemort? Count Olaf from Lemony Snicket’s books? Whenever I think of the word ‘sinister’ I have scary music playing in my head and imagine a dark shadowy figure creeping up behind me to give me a shock! The story of where it comes from is very unexpected, too.

I’ll give you a clue.

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth Harry Potter story, did you notice that the villainous Voldemort uses his left hand to cast spells in the graveyard?

Da-da-daaaaaaaaa!

(That’s the scary music part.)

Back in Roman times, people believed strongly that the left side of the body was unlucky. The word for ‘left’ in their language, Latin, was, in fact, sinistra. So the fact that Voldemort wields his wand in his left hand is very appropriate!

By the way, have you ever heard of the expression ‘get off on the wrong foot’? It means to start something in a bad or awkward way. Well, that foot was the left one, just as when we say a grumpy person ‘got out of bed on the wrong side’, we mean the left one too!

In fact, left-handers have had such a bad time over the centuries that many words in English that still mean ‘awkward’ or ‘foolish’, such as ‘cack-handed’, actually began as terms for poor left-handed folks.

In fact, within a 14-mile radius in Scotland there are 14 different variations for being left-handed, and — this is even more extraordinary — almost all have to do with the Kerr family from Ferniehirst Castle in the Scottish Borders. Among them are ‘Corrie-fisted’ and ‘Kerr-handed’; let me explain.

The story goes that the Laird of the Castle, Andrew Kerr, was left-handed. He used that fact to great advantage, surprising the enemy with the unexpected direction of his sword. In fact, he only employed left-handed soldiers. The castle itself was built for left-handers — in most castles the spiral staircases go round clockwise, but Ferniehirst has anti-clockwise ones. That gave left-handed swordsmen a huge advantage, because the bends gave their left arms freedom to move over the open railing and swing round with maximum force.

Isn’t that the perfect revenge for all those left-handed insults?!