History reports that the lucky rabbit’s foot might thread its way back to the medieval “Hand of Glory” symbol: The severed hand of a criminal who was hanged to death. As Atlas Obscura explains, a “Hand of Glory” was the right hand of a hanged criminal cut off while the person was still hanging. Originally it wasn’t a good luck charm, but a magical token believed to keep people asleep in their home while trespassers burgled the premises. 

In explaining the origins of this custom, Atlas Obscura mentions the nearly 3,800-year-old Babylonian Code of Hammurabi and its famous “eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” punishment system. This law system made its way into the Bible in the Book of Exodus, verbatim, through the culture of a related Mesopotamian people: the Jews. There’s no way to be certain, but it stands to reason that people in Christian medieval Europe — where the Hand of Glory originated — might have attributed some divine power to the body of a person brought to justice before God.  

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Fast forward hundreds of years to the European Renaissance, and rabbits pop up in artwork like Giovani Bellini’s Saint Jerome Reading (1505), Titian’s “Madonna of the Rabbit” (1530), and many more. Titian’s painting shows Mary, the mother of Jesus, reaching for her baby with one hand and placing her other hand on a white rabbit. The Art Inspector says that the rabbit represents purity and fertility, as well as death, as it burrows in the ground while Jesus rises from it. When combined with existing Hand of Glory beliefs, perhaps — just perhaps — a severed rabbit paw symbolizes a fortuitous, holy sacrifice.

[Featured image by Tiziano Vecellio via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled]