Superstitions

NotSpaghetti I hadn't heard of that version.

none

sazz1

My French gran wouldn't have lilac in the house. OK in the garden but bad luck in the house

My Welsh grandmother was the same, and so was my Mum!

My French gran wouldn't have lilac in the house. OK in the garden but bad luck in the house

I could understand the magpie-greeting thing when they were a relatively rare sight, but since they’ve been a protected species, we have masses of them around here. Too many, TBH!

I should think many superstitions began as sensible reactions to cause-and-effect. No new shoes on the table, for instance. Could it be that if the new shoes were made of leather from the hide of an animal which had died of anthrax, enough of the spores of the deadly disease remained to contaminate the table or any food on it and cause a death in the house? Before the means of the spread of infection were known, it was just a mysterious and unpleasant death. It is an unlikely thing to happen now, but the superstition would be remembered.

Maybe if people who are plagued by superstitious dreads could analyse why certain things or actions became a cause for worrying they would be able to ignore them?

Religious taboos (some seeming very similar to superstition) might date back to genuine safety concerns, too. Take not eating pork, an ancient dietary rule which is also followed by people with no religious reason to do so. In Old Testament times, most people in the Middle East lived their lives in small villages with little or no sanitation, using the great outdoors instead. There was no municipal cleaning department either - that function was performed by wandering swine, who ate anything they could find lying around. In these conditions, pork could easily become infected with parasites, picked up from the faeces of an infected person. I won't go into the life cycle of that parasite, but if you didn't eat pork, you avoided infection. Nowadays pig farmers are careful what they feed to their pigs, but the habit of not eating pork lives on.

Yes, it makes sense, at least.
It's just that my mum reacted as if I'd done the worst thing ever when I got my new secondhand pram.

This thread made me wonder if superstitions are dying out . I remember my grandmother and Mother saying a few whilst growing up . But I never told my daughters any , they're 32 now . My granddaughter who's 14 has never heard of superstitions before

MissAdventure I think the superstition about the pram may come from the sad reality of infant mortality at one time. So perhaps not as silly as some.

Babs03

Are you superstitious?
I always salute a single magpie and say ‘hello Mr Magpie how’s your lady wife,’ which can be embarrassing in public 😂
I will not put new shoes on the table or open an umbrella inside the house.
One of my SiLs has parents who will not eat a banana when travelling.
Any other superstitions people have?
The stranger the better. 🤪

When I posted this I hadn't a clue why my SiLs parents will not eat a banana when travelling and nobody else on the thread could either so of course when we saw them recently I asked them and apparently it is because the father's father served in the navy for many years and was a superstition at sea that eating a banana could be dangerous because a sailor could slip on the skin and fall into the sea. There are apparently many other superstitions. But anyway this supersition was passed down and became associated with any kind of travel.
xx

MissAdventure

How about not having the pram in the house before your baby is born?

I think this must be because until a baby is born there is always the chance something unfortunate might happen and the baby might not make it.
One of my daughters who suffered a terrible miscarriage insisted that we keep all the baby stuff at our house until the baby was safely born.

How about not having the pram in the house before your baby is born?

Always going out the same door you went in? No new shoes on the bed, uncrossing crossed knives on a plate... salt over my shoulder.... just a few lol

lizzypopbottle
I thought the recipient had to buy the knife (or scissors etc) . They are the ones who should pay you with a coin.

A dear friend of my parents gave us kitchen scissors and chefs' knives for our wedding but wouldn't hand the parcel over without payment.

See above... Foils not could 🤔

Skydancer if you give anything with a blade, give a coin with it since that can't be cut so it could the bad luck. Same with a purse or wallet, give a coin to ensure it will never be empty. I'm not saying I believe in these superstitions but that's what I was taught.

My DH says never give anyone the gift of knives as it will sever the relationship.

When my sister chose an opal engagement ring our aunt said, ‘Look what happened to your mother, widowed at 45.’ My sister was then widowed at 35. Our aunt knew her superstitions were right because, after she bought a green coat, her husband fell downstairs!

A group of us girls were chatting at school, when I was 14, and one said to sit combing wet hair by candle light at midnight on Halloween infront of a mirror. Apparently you will see the face of your future husband in the mirror.
So I tried it and as the clock struck midnight the door opened and I saw...........

My dad's face coming home from the pub. He wasn't at all pleased. This is actually true.

My Mum used to go ape if anybody put new shoes on the table. Peacock feathers in the house went straight outside. Crossed knives bothered her. Crossing on the stairs was another. If you gave anybody a purse as a gift you had to put a coin in it. I am sure there were loads of other superstitions my Mum had.

When i had my first baby a very elderly crippled lady managed to get herself from her cottage to mine to bring a fresh egg and a silver coin for the baby. I had never heard of that but it was meant to bring wealth and fertility. He is OK, but not wealthy and he doesn’t want children!!!

I saw my first newborn baby when I was 12.Mum gave me a coin to give him and I was surprised when he grasped it. Look at him grabbing that money I said. Takes after his Dad said mum!

No superstitions
Parents, husband and offspring had/have none either

We’ve had threads on superstitions here before, but they are always interesting. My mother was very superstitious and if you grow up with them, they tend to stick. Now my daughter inherits mine…

Don’t look at a full moon through glass, no white May blossom in the house, she called it Motherdie?
She read playing cards for fortunes, but often threw the pack in the fire, I don’t know why. She never took the cards seriously, but had been taught to read them by my grandfather (this of course was such a long time before the world and his wife read cards). She loved green, so no problem with that, but we have Irish in the family, so maybe that was the reason.

Theatrical No no’s:
Whistling, real flowers on stage (not the bouquets at the end) saying the Scottish play rather than Macbeth. Don’t wish someone good luck, rather break a leg.
Italians don’t like to wear a purple costume.
The stage must always have one light on, even when closed.

My ex husband and his mother are very superstitious. My ex wouldn't pass me on the stairs and used to turn around on the step so we were both facing the same direction. (crazy as it could have caused an accident). His mother would not look at a Magpie to save her life! As a teenager I once read a book on the origins of superstitions. I can't remember them all in detail but here are some I do recall. An umbrella open indoors stems from cultures that worshiped the sun and only the priest were allowed to shade the sun from their bodies. Across the eons of time this has been translated from sunshades to umbrellas. Ladders were sometimes used as a makeshift gallows so to walk under one was to walk in the shadow of a hanged man. To give a gift of something sharp is to sever a friendship so the idea is for the receiver to pay a coin as if the buy the sharp object. To touch wood for luck stems from when pagans worshiped tree gods. Salt was a precious commodity so to spill some people thought they had angered the devil who sits on the left shoulder so they threw some of the spilt salt to appease the devil.

I struggle with certain obsessional behaviours and try so hard not to let superstitions upset my life. I just want to live without any of these ridiculous rituals. Just to be free of any superstitions and silly rituals and enjoy whatever life brings