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A painted circular geometric design on Pennsylvania Dutch barns.
Also known as: Barn star, Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign, Distelfink
Circular painted designs — rosettes, stars, birds — on barns in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Whether they were ever protective or simply decorative is a genuine and long-running argument, and the word 'hex' entered the story late.
A circular painted design applied to barns and outbuildings in Pennsylvania Dutch communities, typically built from compass geometry with rosettes, stars, hearts and stylised birds.
Pennsylvania, United States
Whether the designs were understood as protective or purely decorative is genuinely disputed. Some twentieth-century writers and practitioners describe a protective function; others within the same communities have insisted the designs were ornament, in the phrase 'chust for nice'.
A live disagreement including among members of the communities concerned.
Pennsylvania, United States
The term 'hex sign' itself is a twentieth-century coinage popularised by writers and the tourist trade, from German Hexe, witch. The designs are considerably older than the name.
Name from the 20th century; designs older
A large painted circle containing a symmetrical geometric design, most often a star or rosette of six or eight points, in bold contrasting colours.