Edited sentence: According to Roud, the earliest documented references to "touching wood" are from 1805 and 1828 and concern chasing games like "Tiggy-touch-wood", where you are safe from being "tagged" if you "touch wood", says Roud, "'Tiggy-touch-wood" was an extremely well-known game, and it is more than likely that the phrase was passed into everyday language.However historian Steve Roud finds no evidence in the British Isles for the earlier theories, suggesting that the superstitions have not been traced beyond children's games of tag of the early nineteenth century