favorite superstitions

Subject: favorite superstitions
From: sharon
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 12:14 PM

When I was a newlywed, it absolutely amazed me .... the amount of superstitions that may mother-in-law firmly held to as truth. I could never watch her cut up a chicken.......very bad luck, I think it could cause someone dear to die! And once I stepped over a cucumber vine.......she wanted to make sure that it was not the "wrong time of the month" for me.......If it were, I could have just killed the vine! What are some of your favorite superstitions?

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: John OSh
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 12:47 PM

My personal fav. is never light 3 cigs. on a match - goes back to WWI days where at night, snipers could get an accurate fix to shoot in the time it took to light 3 cigs. for soldiers (Spot, mark, shoot?) to this day, my fiends and I always blow out the match or lighter when someone tries to light a third.

Also, the one about never putting shoes on a table (either w/ or w/o feet in them. It is supposed to be back luck, but I don't know why (both my mother and my grandmother (from my fathers side) always adhered to this.

John OSh

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Cara
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 02:24 PM

My favorite, which I use all the time, is that it's bad luck to spill salt, and so to reverse the bad luck you have to throw some of the spilled crystals backwards over your shoulder.

I also don't open umbrellas indoors or walk under ladders. If I'm walking down the street with someone and a we're separated by a pole or something, I say "bread and butter". If the clasp of your necklace works its way around to the front, you can make a wish before you fix it (NOTE: having done this approx. 7,463,431 I can tell you that this doesn't work but it never hurts to try).

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Bobbo
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 02:52 PM

In southern Alabama it's considered good luck to have lunch with a midget, but I don't think it works. The only time I tried it I got stuck with the tab.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: annamill
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 03:06 PM

Hi,

I'm not a very superstitious person at all. I do however, believe strongly in karma.

(I know, karma...dogma) When I see someone who is always having bad luck or people treat badly, I also notice that many, many times that person is not very nice. will not go out of their way to do something nice, in fact, will go out of their way not to do something nice.

Which came first, the meanness or the bad luck, I don't know. I do know that with a change in attitude a person can change their life.

I guess this is a sort of superstition. If you put out good, you get good back. If you put out bad, you get bad back.

If I was to have a religion, I think this would be it. I don't mean Buddism, either. Just Karma.

annap

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Blue Shack
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 04:02 PM

Masturbating makes you go crazy. Also if it rains and sunshines at the same time it means the devil is beating his wife behind the door. (The door to what?)

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Uilleand
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 04:29 PM

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.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Fadac
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 04:37 PM

For some time I worked on a vessel that ran from Punt Arena, Chili to Antartica. In the town square there is a statu to Maglan. Hanging around our hero is the status of some Indians that lived in the area. Anyway, one of the Indians legs come down quite close to the ground, and is quite shiny. Legend is that if you rub (or kiss) the toe, you will have a safe passage accross the Drake. (Drake passage is the body of water between South America and Antartica.) I made sure to rub (or kiss, depending on beer level) that toe, before heading off on another trip. I have seen the Chilian Navy line up the whole ships company, to rub that toe.

Did it work? Well I did get stuck in the ice for at least a week, two years in a row. However execpt for some sea sickness, I was never the worse for wear.

-Fadac, the sailor man.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 06:29 PM

When I was a kid and we would drive under a bridge or overpass, we always put our hands palm up on the roof of the car to keep the bridge from falling down around us.

Also, I love 13 and black cats, so made it my mission, as a child, to always claim the good luck they brought. I've always had a black cat and so far so good.

My daughter's stepmotherinlaw, who is from St. Marten in the Carribean, wouldn't let her put the babies on the table for any reason. It was considered very bad luck for the baby.

My second husband's mother was literally crazy; she was institutionalized shortly after we were married. Before that, she saw me in the grocery store one day, grabbed my arm and told me to never eat sunflower seeds (which I love!) because they made redheads go crazy; and, she told me to feed her son oysters sauteed in butter to keep him from going bald!

At weddings when I was little, if the couple was given a knife of any kind, there had to be a penny in with it, generlly on the blade. Can't remember why. I think something about it not severing their relationship. And, the groom was never supposed to see the bride in her wedding gown until she came up the aisle.

As children, there was the very common one of not stepping on a crack of the sidewalk lest we break our mother's back.

Fadac, some of yours sound pretty interesting. It must have been really something to be stuck out on the ice. I'll bet you've more tales to tell.

katlaughing

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Fadac
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 06:39 PM

katlaughing. Yes, I have a video in production. I have about 300 slides and photos, and about 12 hours of video to boil down.

Right now I need to upgrade my Adobe Premier 4.2 to 5.1. But I can't seem to find my orginal disks. (sigh) So things should start on the video soon.

BTW, one of the things that kept me from going over the edge, we my concertina. I made it a point to play for at least an hour a day. I didn't quite make that every day. But it was a great mind break from the tedious 15-17 hour days I was doing.

Fadac - The video man.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 08:39 PM

When my dad spent months working on Amchitka, in the Aleutian Islands, he also used his music (fiddle and banjo) to keep his sanity and that of those around him. Everybody loved to see Sparky come for a stint, as it meant plenty of music to break up the long works hours and monotony otherwise.

Sounds like you'll have a great video.

katlaughing

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From:
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 08:44 PM

i firmly believe that one must eat the fortune cookie _before_ reading the fortune, or else the fortune won't truly belong to one.

annap, my mom's a believer in karma as well, only she calls it "the cosmic scorecard".

when i was in hawaii, a sign at the state park cautioned that if i took one of the volcanic rocks away from the islands, pele (the goddess of the volcanos) would curse me with bad luck until her rock was returned. i took one anyway and gave it to a friend (i told her about the curse and said she could make her own decision about whether or not to send it back), and if you ask me, her life has been hell ever since.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: MAG (inactive)
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 08:45 PM

My Grandfather Williams was absolutely convinced he could cure burns, because he had never seen his father (family black sheep and drunk who disappeared without a trace. Great-Gram managed to get him declared legally dead in short order; how we'll never know).

Great-Gram was from Glasgow; I've always thought it must have been a Scottish superstition, since her Welsh first hsband wasn't around. (Taliesin Rhys Williams. Managed to get himself kicked out of the Union Army. Funny how the Black Sheep are the interesting ones.)

My Gram Williams had a thing about stepping over a fallen broomstick. She was a West Virginia Dixiecrat, so I've always assumed that was a Southern thing.

-- MA

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: alison
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 09:08 PM

Hi,

My Gran was full of this sort of stuff too. In our house shoes on the table were only unlucky if they were new shoes...... knives touching meant you were going to have a fight,....... and picking your nose will make your eyes fall out!!!!!

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 09:23 PM

Annap,

Forgot to say Karma is my guiding light, too. My girlfriend even has little "tickets", like a speeding ticket, except they are for good or bad karma actions. Actually quite funny and mostly meant to give people when they've been wracking up what I call Karmic Brownie Points.

katlaughing

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: bbelle
Date: 09 Jun 99 - 10:00 PM

Superstitutions are part of one's history. I always leave out of the same door I entered; according to Mother it was bad luck not to do so. I am very cautious on 13th Fridays and lick my finger and put a cross on windshield if a black cat crosses in front of my car.

I absolutely believe in protecting one's karma. If someone does me a good deed, I turn around and perform the same good deed for someone else. For years, I've been letting people ahead of me in the grocery line if they had just one or two items, with the hope that someone would do the same for me. I'm still waiting ... As one who believes everything in life happens for a reason ... protecting my karma is very, very important ... moonchild

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 10 Jun 99 - 03:28 AM

G'day,
Don't forget the one they tell all adolescent boys: if you do that you'll go blind. I've got good eyesight.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 10 Jun 99 - 04:16 AM

If you see a magpie, you have to bow (or curtsey) and say, "Morning Sir Magpie". If you don't, bad things will happen. (Like in The Omen)

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: alison
Date: 10 Jun 99 - 04:39 AM

Hey alan...

you forgot the second bit of that last sentence..... "for someone with glasses." Hahahahahahahaha

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Cara
Date: 10 Jun 99 - 09:06 AM

My dad saysn that if you receive knives as a gift, you have to send one penny for each knife to the giver so that the knives will always stay sharp. Must be one side os the same superstition katlaughing mentioned.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Jun 99 - 09:49 AM

My son Michael believes that after eating a really big meal, you have to hold your bellybutton for five minutes or it will come undone and your ass will fall off. I don't know where he gets this stuff.

catspaw

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Bert
Date: 10 Jun 99 - 10:25 AM

Catspaw,

You REALLY don't know where he gets that stuff. I think most of us here could tell you.

Bert.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 01:48 PM

Well rather then starting a new thread, decided to post my weird little experience here.

We have a car up for sale, which I put on the Free Ads at my work (large County Council in the UK). Car has been on the site for over a month. Had not one bit of interest until today.

Got 2 emails with an hour of each other. Both of women named Naomi both of whom work in Social Services, not too far from one another and they do not know each other.

Has to be some sort of Friday the 13th magic.

Freaky innit?

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 02:09 PM

Re the 2nd post on this now refreshed thread from 10 years ago, about what the poster & his 'fiends' in the army used to do - surely it was the enemy snipers who were the FIENDS!

In the thread after that, as to the throwing of the spilled salt over the shoulder — that is an interestingly complicated one. It has to be the LEFT shoulder — the reason being that the spilling of the salt will have been an action to invoke the Devil; he, as one knows, always approaches from behind on the left, the unlucky or 'sinister' [Latin = 'left'] side, and looks over the invoker's left shoulder. So gathering up the most convenient available weapon [in this case, obviously, the spilled salt] & throwing it into his eye will prove effective in driving him away. QED...

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: gnu
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 02:26 PM

Which eye?

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 02:42 PM

Never put a hat on the bed, may stem from never lay your hat where you lay your head, for evils spirits will fall out of the hat.

Some say the hat on bed causes arguments. (Like - "Why can't you ever put anything away?")

Some say it is bad luck will lead to death or accidents.

One says this

"I would think that putting a hat on a bed would be inviting someone to inadvertently sit on it. It would be embarrasing to have to wear a hat with someone else's buttmarks on it."

That one is just for Spaw.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 02:53 PM

It is bad luck for a newly married man to leave the toilet seat up. If you do, you will be awakened by screams in the middle of the night.

The screaming goes away after a few weeks, though.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 03:00 PM

snork... literally, snorting with laughter here.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Becca72
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 03:01 PM

I'm reading this thread for the first time on Friday the 13th and I currently have 2 black cats (who often approach from my left). The "no shoes on the table" sounds familiar from childhood like something my grandmother would have said but I think it's less likely bad luck and more likely the fact that shoes are filthy and you eat at the table...
The one that sticks in my mind most from my grandmother is not to change the calendar before the 1st of the month. My B-I-L did that once (on the 30th) and my sister and I both yelled at him to change it back.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 03:13 PM

anyone notice that there were 3 Friday the 13ths this year?

seems pretty unusual.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Darowyn
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 03:42 PM

My Gran would tell us that if you put your shoes on the table, you will die with your feet off the ground.
I think that refers to hanging.
My own personal superstition is that I never put my crash helmet on the ground upside down, so that the painted surface touches the ground. I don't want it to get used to being like that in case it does it while I'm wearing it.
I also think that new guitars don't know any songs, so I have always bought second hand ones. Though there is an explanation for that which is at least semi rational!
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 03:44 PM

It's bad luck to believe in unfounded superstitions, or to read threads about them on Friday.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 03:45 PM

'I also think that new guitars don't know any songs, so I have always bought second hand ones. Though there is an explanation for that which is at least semi rational!'

HOW SO? Pray expound...

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 03:47 PM

ooohh! that needs a it's own thread.

New guitars don't know no songs.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 03:49 PM

There was TV ad for 'Gold Label' barley wine back in the 60's or 70's that had a David Attenborough type stating that there was an old superstion that went 'Don't steal a Pygmies Gold Label or he will do what he is able'. He then went on to do so and got a shrunken head. Made me laugh anyway but I was a lot younger...

DeG

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: SINSULL
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 03:50 PM

The crow of a hen and the whistle of a woman wake the devil from his lair.

From a sampler:
A whistling woman
And a crowing hen
Never will come
To any good end.



My brothers were forbidden to teach me to whistle. I recited it to a whistling woman on the street once and she went off on me. LOL

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 09:32 AM

Well I doomed then. Been whistling since I was about 9 years old.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 10:41 AM

Anyone notice that there were 3 Friday the 13ths this year?

It's worse than that. There was also one month in which Friday the 13th fell on Saturday, and another in which it fell on the 14th.

Subject: RE: favorite superstitions
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 10:56 AM

OMG! We are all doomed then!