Heavy Metal Horns Came From a Singer's Italian Grandmother

In 1979, Ronnie James Dio had a stage problem. He had just become the lead singer of Black Sabbath, the English heavy metal band, and he needed a way to greet the crowd.

His predecessor, singer Ozzy Osbourne, had a signature move. After shows, Osbourne flashed a peace sign, two fingers up in a V.

Dio did not want to copy him. So he reached back to childhood, to his upbringing in a family with Italian roots and to a grandmother who held tightly to old superstitions.

She often raised what Italians call the mano cornuta, or horn hand. The index finger and pinky point up like horns, while the middle and ring fingers fold down and the thumb pins them to the palm.

It had nothing to do with rock music. People in Italy and around the Mediterranean had used that shape for hundreds of years to deflect the malocchio, the envious stare thought to bring misfortune, or to protect against a stranger with bad intentions.

Internet conspiracy theories have claimed the curled fingers and pointed digits add up to three sixes. That is not true.

He borrowed his grandmother's signal and started using it at concerts, and Black Sabbath became associated with it.

He had found his own greeting, not from rock history but from family protection against bad luck.