There are the usual bad luck ones I grew up with: Friday the 13th, the number 13 in general, the salt spilling, black cat crossing your path from the left, breaking a mirror -- 7 years bad luck, spinning in the morning brings sorrows, spinning at noon brings luck on the 3rd day, spinning in the evening is refreshing. And then my favourite happened to my friend and I on our trip to Ireland a few years back. We went to Kilkenny castle. The last tour group had just left. The lady at the reception was very kind, so she gave us the folder with the material that the tour guide usually reads to the tour (in German, since we are both from Munich) and told us to go through the castle by ourselves. We entered the first hall. In the center was a large grey marble table. We were tired from driving around all day, so we put the folder on the table and rested our heads in our hands with our elbows on the table, seeking to read the contents. It was the usual tour kind of thing..' on the wall you see the portrait of so-and-so Butler, etc' until we hit a spot in the text which read something like this: 'the marble table in the center of the room was used to display the dead and to touch it is to be cursed for the rest of your life'. The rest of the tour was rather unnerving after that. To our relief we found a little paragraph towards the end of the folder which gave instructions how to rid oneself of this curse by stroking the cheek of the sculpted stone head of a queen at the entrance of the castle three times. Needless to say that that cheek is quite worn. No matter how I wish myself free of all superstitions there is always that tiny little feeling that maybe, just maybe it's not just a superstition.