Over the centuries and millennia, people have believed a lot of things about the moon. Everything from what it’s made of (the “cheese” theory, while its credibility is currently low, might come roaring back at any moment) to the effects it has on what happens here on earth. For instance, back when people spoke Old English, it was generally accepted that the part of each month when the moon is “waning” — that is, after the full moon, you see a bit less of it every night until the next new moon — that was a time of bad luck. This, of course, meant you could expect bad luck about half the time, which seems like a lot. On the other hand, life was hard back in those times.
It might seem extreme to decide that fully half of every month is unlucky, but remember that in the absence of both Facebook and PlayStations, those folks had a lot of time on their hands to ruminate about all the nasty and unpleasant things that might be just about to befall them. I mean, England kept getting invaded, and countless different gangs tried to beat everybody into submission and claim they were “nobility.”
That phase of the moon is called “waning” because it’s based on the Old English word “wanian,” which meant to reduce or become less in some way. It applied to anything — from a puddle slowly evaporating in the sunlight to the rapidly decreasing threat presented by a dragon that was obviously flying away from you. If you turned around to discover that the dragon was just getting away from an even bigger dragon was coming at you from the opposite direction, well, in that case you’d be forgiven for indulging in another word derived from “wanian:” “wanion.” Yes, they’re different words. Barely.
“Wanion” is a fairly old word (although not as old as “wanian”), and its original definition in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is not as helpful as it might be: “Used in certain formulas of asseveration or imprecation.”
“Asservation,” another obsolete word that was obscure even in its heyday, means to keep something. Nothing really noteworthy there — and also nothing very explanatory. But “imprecation” means “the action of invoking evil…in an oath or adjuration; cursing.” The OED tosses these obscure words around pretty freely, possibly on the assumption that, come on, you’re reading a dictionary for crying out loud, so look them up. In any case, “adjuration” means invoking an evil spirit.
So “wanion” was a curse, of a sort. A “may you have bad luck” sort of curse rather than the “you, sir, are a cad and a varlet” kind. There was a phrase “fetch one a wanion” that meant to bring on bad luck. The word seems to have always been a bit uncommon, but it was resurrected in the mid 1800s by Sir Walter Scott, who used it in “Woodstock:”
“But, as he pressed upon her with a violence, of which the object could not be mistaken, and endeavoured to secure her right hand, she exclaimed, “Take it then, with a wanion to you!” — and struck him an almost stunning blow on the face, with the pebble which she held ready for such an extremity.”
You see, back in the days of yore, when even the phase of the moon could bring misfortune, it was prudent to always hold a pebble at the ready just in case of, y’know, extremities. And watch out, because the moon is currently waning.
