Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 09:14 PM

My gran, who died in1979, always used to say to us scruffy lads, "Pull yer socks up, yer nose is bleeding!" Never did get me head round that one!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 07:00 PM

Penny S: My experience of girls trying to faint was at junior school, where we didn't have P.E. Maybe they just wanted to be sent home - can't say I blame them for that.
Pig's can't swim, as they would slit their throats with their trotters. Aparently this isn't true.
My mother and her sisters were told by her mother or her great aunt on 1st Jan, that if they went out for a walk, they would meet a man with as many noses as there were days in the year. It was a few years before they cottoned on to the fact that, as it was the first day of the year, there was at that stage only one day...
JK

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 09:42 AM

Sounds like an interesting variant on an old denunciatory interjection, innit —

"Oh go and firstfoot yourself!"

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Nov 15 - 09:35 AM

if you firstfoot yourself *** I have firstfooted myself ***

??????????

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST,Montreal88
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 10:49 PM

Don't go under that bridge - trolls live there.
Horseradish is made by grinding up a horse's ears.
Don't go swimming until two hours after eating.
I broke a mirror when I was 6 years old - I still remember the day seven years later - I was so relieved!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: JHW
Date: 20 Nov 15 - 04:23 PM

'if you didn't take your Christmas decorations down on 6th Jan' they would turn into Goblins - though i found out later only applies to greenery decorations
And of course if you firstfoot yourself you will have a year's bad luck.
Most New Year's at this address I have firstfooted myself but whether I've had a year's bad luck is hard to quantify

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Nov 15 - 06:34 PM

Wall pennywort is a cure for piles. Just rub the leaves on your sore bum. It's also an edible plant. My personal recommendation, as a botany graduate, is that you use different batches of wall pennywort for these two purposes. I'd also suggest that you should wash your hands between the two operations, though you probably won't die if you don't.

[As I don't want anyone to be poisoned, the wall pennywort I'm talking about is Umbilicus rupestris.]

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 19 Nov 15 - 06:17 PM

Raggytash, although my mother's warning was sound, the reason she gave was completely wrong.

As for chilblains, I believe it is to do with the circulation, which is why stamping might help. We used to get chilblains on our feet when we had to stand in the cold and wet, waiting for the bus to school.
An old woman who lived in a crumbling cottage in the woods told us that we should treat chilblains with wall penny-wort. We dutifully collected the plant and rubbed our toes with it. The effect was probably achieved by the massage involved in rubbing our toes with the plant, more than by the plant extracts themselves.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Nov 15 - 01:35 PM

My mother warned me to "Beware of those little Blodwyns"....?????

when I told her there were quite a few South Welsh Valley Girls on my degree and in Halls of Residence.

did I listen..???

Over 30 years later I'm still with the first one that enticed & claimed me...

I think I've had plenty enough time to experience what mother was implying..... 😜

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Nov 15 - 07:28 AM

You should have listened to your Mother Topsie, you were warned!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Nov 15 - 07:24 AM

radiators and chilblains
I think there is good evidence for that, but radiators have to be hot.
Not that I heard this but it was an urban legend that: if you put your feet in a po it would help with chilblains. I think it did depend on there being contents and what those contents were!
You used to be able to get a tin of chilblain ointment, it had the look & consistency of soft beeswax and a different smell. Don't remember it working that well.
To keep feet warm in the cold snow (and presumably ward off chilblains) we were told stamp our feet as we walked. That seemed to work on the warming front, can't remember doing those kind of analyses on chilblains - I was only 6/7 at the time.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 19 Nov 15 - 05:19 AM

"soldiers were cool and their officers intelligent"

Don't know about that, but my mother told me to have nothing to do with RAF men because they would love you and leave you. If only ... (took years to get rid of him).

As for the radiators and chilblains, I have found this to be true.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Nov 15 - 04:22 AM

Don't go near the canal edge if the water is covered in duckweed because Jenny Greenteeth will pull you in and drown you.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Nov 15 - 03:42 AM

Back to the sausages. I used to use Italian herbed sausages a la Nigella Lawson's recipe but one day found the sausages in the freezer which I thought were them turned out to be some black pudding ones I had forgot about. Never looked back. Lots of parsley sprinkled on top before serving.

Sitting on whatever was indeed said to give you the Nobby Stiles. Although galloping dysentery is guaranteed to tempt the buggers out, trust me.

In our house the eater of the last item on the plate was invariably the dog. The item was usually over stewed cabbage or farting crackers. In later life I have started liking brussels but then!

As children, we were led to believe soldiers were cool and their officers intelligent. We played British Bulldogs in the playground and believed everything the school curriculum wanted us to believe.

As a teenager, I was told beer ended at Nottingham. In a way, it did but don't put today's values on it eh?

The girl next door told me the blue lady would bite my toes in bed. Mind you, she told me lots of things. I reckon it was her that said smelling dandelions made you wee your trousers. She told me Jesus could see everything I did. That must have been riveting for him.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 01:29 PM

The eater of the last item on the plate was guaranteed a handsome husband and £1000 a year. Oh Yeah!

Sitting on wet grass gives you piles.
Sitting on the radiator gives you piles.

What are piles? No explanation offered.

Putting your cold hands on the radiator will give you chilblains.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 01:22 PM

Making you faint was to get out of PE. What's so odd about that?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 12:17 PM

"combining coca cola and aspirin will kill you."
When I started going to The Cavern, in Liverpool ( a wonderful Jazz Club then) the only drink you could get was Coca Cola which was drunk in great quantities until the rumour spread that it would make you impotent (important at that age - ah well!!)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 12:07 PM

Speaking of swimming baths, it was claimed that if you did a belly-flop off the top diving board, your belly would split open. I knew at least one boy who claimed to have seen this happen. Mind you, another boy claimed he had once done it three times.
And girls always seemed to be trying things they believed wuld make them faint. Can't remember any precise receipes, but it seemed to involve things like biting your knckles and blowing hard...stuff like that. Never saw any of them succeed though. Strange creatures, girls.
And if you didn't take your Christmas decorations down on 6th Jan, you had to leave them up until Easter. No-one ever said what would happen if you didn't abide by this law.We often left ours up for weeks, but not until Easter. We didn't get struck by a bolt from the blue or anything. Quite disappointing really.
JK

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 09:17 AM

Frogprince said, in part:

"...cigarette packs..." I always heard it was coupons that came in (or on?) Raleigh packs.

True. My mother was a heavy smoker, always Raleighs, and she saved
and redeemed the coupons attached to the packs. I know she got a
card table, and another time a small cabinet-table for the living
room. I don't remember the other items she got from the Raleigh coupons,
but I know we had a running joke that half of our apartment's
furnishings were obtained that way.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 06:25 AM

I did not put my penis in that...

Oh, hang on, wasn't that some American bloke?

Eeeeeh. Bury black puds. You have never lived unless you have wandered round Bury market late on a Saturday afternoon up to your knees in black pudding skins.

:D tG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 09:59 PM

Folk rumours for the next generation.....


"If you french kiss a dead pig you'll one day grow up to become Prime Minister"... 😘

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 07:37 PM

That sounds pretty good, guest, though that particular dish cosa nostra uses italian fennel-infested sausages instead of the black pudding. In a little town in Andalucia, Canjayar in the Alpujarras, yer man in the main bar in the village square presented us with his latest tapas invention, "huevos sorpresas". Basically, it was a bap containing a fried egg, the "surprise" being that there was also a bloody great big wodge of the local morcilla in there as well! It slightly shocked non-black pudding-eating Mrs Steve, though she devoured it manfully. I loved it so much that I had seconds! My way with Bury black pud is very simple. I strip off the skin, slice it up and fry it for a few minutes in butter. I'll live forever, I tell you!

Anyway, that's serious thread drift. If you sit on a cold stone wall you'll get piles. Avoid.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 05:49 PM

If you saw an ambulance you would sonn ride in one, unless you immediately recited. "Cross my fingers, Cross my toes. Don't let me ride In one of those." Crossing one's toes was not that easy, I recall.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 05:41 PM

Stick it in a hotspot Mr Shaw.

Our butcher does excellent black pudding sausages. Dave the Gnome's train of thought could run riot. Me? I serve them on a bed of puy lentils with a garlic and red wine sauce.

Another one. A lad of mixed race at school told us he was lucky because he could choose between marrying a black or a white woman. We were all jealous.

The illuminated trams in Blackpool, only people who lived in Blackpool could travel on them. (Yet I'm sure I saw my cousin on one.)

If you wee in the swimming baths your teeth fall out. (Bloody true, it seemed.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 05:03 PM

Don't even think of telling me until I've eaten the Bury black pudding that lieth in my fridge.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 02:46 PM

I daren't tell you what we used to call black puddings either. I'd have the PC brigade in uproar ;-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 12:54 PM

Killing a spider has always brought on bad luck. Huckleberry Finn iirc went thru all sorts of rituals and rigmaroles after he flicked one off his shoulder and it fell into the candle.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 12:30 PM

A bit of drift if I may, following last post:

I was teaching at a school in Stevenage in the mid-60s when the then Pope lifted the conventional expectation that Catholics should refrain from eating meat on a Friday. The following Friday, a boy on my lunch table went to the hatch as usual to get his fish lunch provided for RCs by the dinner ladies. "You know, John," I said, "you don't have to eat fish on Fridays any longer. The Pope says it's OK for you to eat meat."

"Never mind the Pope, Sir," he replied. "It's my mum."

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 10:49 AM

I could understand my liver wrapping itself around a whisky bottle...

Not eating meat on a Friday was dismissed when I innocently ate a black pudding on the way home from the flicks one night before I realised what day it was. Nothing bad happened but I was a bit worried for 10 minutes or so...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 10:45 AM

sensible childhood indoctrination with hygiene health and safety ?

"You must never eat or drink in the toilet !!!"

As a small kid I made sure I swallowed all spit and cleared my mouth before entering the bathroom
for fear of some unspecified terror....


until teenage swagger of standing at a pub urinal with pint in one hand and mouthful of pork scratchings
defeated childhood anxieties...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 10:12 AM

That last post remimds me of something I heard - not as a child, but as an adult; that someone had put some liver in the fridge next to a pint of milk, and when they opened the fridge later, the liver had wrapped itself around the milk bottle. Sorry - drifting into the related realms of Apocryphal Tales....
JK

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Paul Reade
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 09:31 AM

I had a friend who swore that eating liver gave you a "curly tongue". He never defined what a "curly tongue" was though!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 09:05 AM

My sister insisted her first child was an immaculate conception, but my dad still got the shotgun out and the marriage went ahead!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 03:43 AM

If you pull a leg off a spider it runs round in ever decreasing circles till it disappears. I was a little older before I worked out how it disappeared.

An old garage attached to a pub down the road was haunted by the blue lady.

If you bought Brenda Grainger a sherbet fountain she'd show you her knickers. (More chance of her showing you her knuckles.)

The woman across the road was a bit "ten Bob on the mantlepiece."

The guard dog at a local factory had killed three boys in its time.

Licorice bungs you up.

Sitting on girders gives you piles.

Something about girls combing their hair by candle in their mum's dressing table mirror, they see the man they will marry.

Playing with yourself can make you go blind. (20:20 vision in my 50s and one arm more muscular than the other. Hah!)

Anyone black / Asian / mentally or physically incapacitated / homosexual was different.

Jesus and God existed.



Funny how we grow out of bullshit we learned as a kid. (When I was 17 I found it wasn't sherbert fountain after all, but a brandy and babycham did the trick nicely.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: LadyJean
Date: 16 Nov 15 - 07:59 PM

Re. arachnids, my father informed me that if you killed a spider it would bring on rain.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Nov 15 - 04:30 PM

The Greyhound in Birmingham - went there once just for the cider. They had spaghetti sandwiches wrapped in cellophane behind the bar. I kid you not. Maybe the microwaved them, maybe not.

beehive hairdo I was told by Cynthia Fiddler (sister of John Fiddler of Medicine Head) about the girl who got a beehive and sprayed and sprayed to save on the hairdressers. A fly got in, drilled into her skull and laid eggs which ate into her brain and killed her. Now I took that as myth then but I told that to my niece recently in NZ and she said she heard the same story only it was Rastafarian Dreadlocks. What goes around comes around.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 16 Nov 15 - 11:00 AM

My mum's version was "whistle before breakfast - cry before supper".

There was also "play with fire - wet the bed".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Nov 15 - 04:33 PM

Re Guest Silver's post above, 14 nov 0653: my mother had a jingle from her childhood re this belief -- "Sing before breakfast — cry before supper."

Did no-one else learn that if you took the last biscuit or cake from the plate, you would die an old maid [boys included iirc]?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Penny S.
Date: 15 Nov 15 - 03:12 PM

In my teens, I was told that an aspirin in Coca Cola would knock you out.

And when beehive hairdos were in fashion, that some girl had found a mouse's nest in hers - now that goes back to the eighteenth century wigs, I think.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 15 Nov 15 - 02:05 PM

I welcome most spiders, but I get rid of those false widows that arrived when next door decided they needed decking. They look very pretty (the spiders, not the people next door), but I'm told they have a nasty bite so I'm not risking it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST,punkfolrocker
Date: 15 Nov 15 - 01:40 PM

I keep telling the wife that the reason the big spiders are so big
is because of eating all the other creepy crawlies in the house that we don't like.

But sadly to no avail.

Most recent bathroom spider seems to have mysteriously disappeared today...???

fingers crossed it's under the bath.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Nov 15 - 01:26 PM

No spider is ever murdered in our house. Spiders are amazing beasts, utterly beautiful. Have a close look at one with a magnifying glass and you'll never kill one again. Also, most spiders found in UK houses will perish if you put them outside. And a spider washed down the plughole is doomed. Put them under the fridge or washing machine where they'll live quite happily on silverfish and the like.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Nov 15 - 12:33 PM

Bad luck to kill a spider ???


I believe every home should have at least one bathroom spider
and a corner of the ceiling where webs are left unvacuumed..

When I'm brushing my teeth or sat on the bog, I like watching bathroom spider go about it's daily routine.

Quite relaxing really.

When I'm bored I have occasionally fed them a half dead but still moving fly or mosquitoe with a pair of the wife's eyebrow tweezers.

Sometimes their spurt of growth after one good feed seems quite noticeable.

The wife however, doesn't share my enthusiasm and takes any opportunity to wash them down the plughole.

Her fear of arachnids clearly over rides any superstition regarding bad luck.....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 15 Nov 15 - 07:57 AM

Roast swan, anybody?

Or are we expected to hand over our newly acquired buoyancy aid to the queen?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST,JF
Date: 15 Nov 15 - 05:44 AM

It's complete nonsense that swans can break your arm or leg with their wing. Their bones aren't nearly as strong as a human being's.

What actually happens is that they rear up and give the victim such a surprise that he falls over and breaks something.

Swans are known to drown unwary swimmers by attacking them and causing them to drown from exhaustion. The solution is to grab the swan by the neck and hold its head under the water.

A dead swan makes a useful buoyancy aid.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: LadyJean
Date: 14 Nov 15 - 11:11 PM

When Barry Goldwater was running for president, it was accepted as fact by the kids I knew that if he was elected we would have school on Saturdays and one month of summer vacation. Hence the rhyme my parents wouldn't let me recite:
Goldwater Goldwater 64!
Couldn't get in the bathroom door.
So he did it on the floor.
Goldwater Goldwater 64!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 14 Nov 15 - 10:31 PM

We were taught that that a "gnome" was a toad-like thing that lived under mushrooms.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

We have hence discovered it is far more like a common garden slug.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Nov 15 - 10:29 PM

"...cigarette packs..." I always heard it was coupons that came in (or on?) Raleigh packs.

The price I heard for the jeeps was consistently $50.00. A family acquaintance told my father that he planned to get one, and Dad told him to try to get one for him too. In that instance no one tried to con anyone out of a deposit or otherwise scam them. I don't know if Dad actually considered it credible or not; he did mention some practical purpose he could use one for. I didn't go so far as fully assuming we were going to get one, but I had some hopeful daydreams of playing around in hills with one.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Nov 15 - 09:51 PM

Not to speak of Errol Flynn's....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumours you believed as a child
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Nov 15 - 08:34 PM

There various rumors/stories/offers in pop culture that circulated widely in the 50s.

"If you collected enough cigarette packs, (was in only one brand?) the company(s) would donate an iron lung to sick children,"

There was supposed to be 'contest' to see who could make the most words from "Planters Peanuts". No one ever said where to send your list..(which would have been half the dictionary) or who would check the entries, or what prize might be gained. I think my brother & I did hundreds of words before suspecting something was awry.

There was rumor that WWII Jeeps, packed in cosmolene, could be bought as government surplus for $100 or so. They were supposed to be sitting on a dock somewhere. The stories evidently originated as a scam by guys who had a 'contact' and for a $25 deposit, they would get your name on the list. I very briefly wondered if it was true.

And of course there were the rumors about bank robber John Dillinger's penis being 'unusually large' and kept by the Smithsonian.