Widdershins (sometimes withershins, widershins or widderschynnes) means to take a course opposite the apparent motion of the sun viewed from the Arctic Circle, to go anticlockwise or lefthandwise, or to circle an object by always keeping it on the left. The Oxford English Dictionary's entry cites the earliest uses of the word from 1513, where it was found in the phrase widdersyns start my hair, i.e. my hair stood on end.