Welcome to my website about the metalhand!The metalhand is one of the hand gestures that we come across very often. When we turn on MTV, visit a festival or even when we search for pictures of our political leaders, we are very likely to see gesture. Nowadays this gesture is mostly being used in the rock and metal community. Since the averege rockconcert isn't the best place to communicate with your friends and you definitely cannot speak to the band, rock and metal- lovers use this handgesture to let everybody know that they are having a good time. Making a metalhand simply tells the others that you are enjoying yourself. This gesture, however, has been around for a long time and it originally had nothing to do with rockmusic at all. This website will inform you about the origin of this gesture, that we will call the Corna from now on. 
The first appearence of the Corna: For the oldest story about the Corna we have to go back to ancient Greece. We can thank Greek mythology for a lot of our expressions, but these old stories have given us some handgestures as well. The story goes that there once was a powerful king named Minos. Minos received a magnificent and extremely beautiful bull from Poseidon, god of the seas. He was supposed to return the bull to Poseidon as a sacrifice, so it wasn’t the most thoughtful gift ever. It does make sense until this point though, since this is a normal event in mythology. Minos, however, had a wife named Pasifae and Pasifae was fors ome strange reason attracted to the bull and she had the intense desire to have intercourse with it. Of course the bull wasn’t interested in her, because bulls just fancy cows instead of humans. Pasifae refused to give up and she went to the famous inventor Daedalus for some help. Daedalus made some kind of wooden cow costume for her, so the bull wouldn’t know that she actually is a human. Pasifae finally got to have intercourse with the mighty bull and this event resulted in the birth of the famous Minotaur. It didn’t took so long though, for the people to find out about this. They were of course amused by this, since it is extremely funny if your Queen prefers intercourse with an animal instead of with her own husband. Therefore, they started to make fun of their king and they didn’t just use words to do so. The handgesture that we use at concerts was used to ridicule their king. The Corna happens to look a lot like a set of horns and the people referred to the affair with the bull by making this gesture. |
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 The Corna's journey from Greece to Italy: We all know that the Romans were impressed by the Greeks and they took over a big part of the Greek culture. They made the Greek political ideas their own, they took over their religion and they did the same thing with some Greek inventions. The Corna probably became one important handgesture in Italy for the same reason. It lost its original meaning though, since the Italians had of course nothing to do with king Minos. The Corno got a few different meanings instead and it also got its name in Italy. This hand gesture was supposed to be able to ward of evil and bad luck. The evil eye was a common belief in Italy and the Corna could be used to protect you from it. When someone is angry with you or when he envies you, he would look at you in a certain way. This look can give you bad luck, diarrhea and it can even kill you. To stop all these things from happening you could just make a corna for protection. You can also make a Corna to indicate that someones partner is cheating on him or her. This is a lot easier than actually tell it directly. Last but not least, the Italians use the Corna to strengthen their words when they curse or when they trie to offend someone. As we can see, all of the meanings of the Corna have to do with bad and evil things. This is one of the reasons why it became a symbol in the metal world, since metal is supposed to be an evil kind of music. It isn't the only reason though, since Ronnie James Dio had a big part in making the Corna a metalsymbol and he's originally from Italy. |
The Corna conspiracy: We can conclude that all of the original meanings had to do with evil things. Having intercourse with animals, the evil eye, cheating on your partner, offending and cursing aren't exactly the most happy and beautiful things. Therefore the Corna became associated with evil. Being a symbol for metalmusic didn't help either, since Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden for example don't exactly give people the impression that they are indeed not inspired by evil. The thing is, however, that a lot of the world's most powerful politicians have been caught on camera while making a Corna. Conspiracy thinkers don't like this at all, because if the Corna is indeed an evil gesture and if all these powerful people openly use it, they are actually admitting that they are up to some bad things themselves. Conspiracy thinkers believe that these politicians are actually working on a world order and that the Corna that we see every once in a while is a warning to us that it will actually happen. Conclusion: This handgesture is more then just a way to let your friends know that Flogging Molly is doing a good job. It has been around for a very long time and it has many different meanings. People in Italy still use it to protect themselves. For example, they make a Corna when they have to visit sick people, so they won't get sick.We need to be careful, like with al hand gestures, when and where we use it, since it can mean something completely different somewhere elkse. Hessel van der Scheer |
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