41 replies to this topic

[anasuya]

So does anyone know why it's bad luck to say thank you after some says bless you when you sneeze?  That's a curious one that I haven't heard before. I know why we say bless you, of course, but I'm not sure about the thank you.

I don't think black cats are bad luck if it crosses your path. I OWN a black cat .... wait.... maybe THAT's why things are so crappy right now! lol. Time to get rid of the cat!

Ana

[whispers_of_fire]

*LOL*Arawa, I sympathize, mate, I think its the same reason I don't use a g/f's name as a password<it causes breakups, doncha know?>

[little_light]

Keep the cat!
Things go wrong for everyone...You cant stop that!

How about this one....

When I was a little girl my brothers told me that everytime we would pass a graveyard in a car I better hold my breath..Cause if I dont then the dead would try to steal my soul.....
Lets just say...Everytime I was in the car w/my brothers I was very dizzy!

[Vampchick21]

Sports fans tend to have some very odd superstitions that seem to develop over the course of the season.

As a crazy sports fan, if my team lost while I was wearing a particular jersey...it's never worn on game day again.  (example...my Team Canada Hockey Jersey is horrid bad luck...I wore it twice for a game...a Leafs Game and the opening game for Team Canada during the Olympics.  The Leafs lost and Sweden beat Canada badly!  That jersey is never worn on game day now).  

I know a lot of sports fans here that do all kinds of ritualistic and supersitious things..especially during key tournaments or playoffs.  Really...a socialogist or anthropolgist could make one heck of a study of it!  

I was taught never to actually say 'Fairie' or "Sidhe", but rather, Wee Folk or Gentry...because if you didn't refer to them that way, they viewed it as an invitation to enter your home.  And some of them you don't want in there!  

Graveyards...we had to lift our feet off the floor of the car, not hold our breath...lol.

Cats...I understand that in North American...Black Cats are bad luck...but they're good luck in England.  I have two black cats...no bad luck...except when they trip me when I'm going to fill the food bowls.

[Angel]

Well let's see...my family is from the Bahamas & we have aLOT...I will try to remember some....Well..there is the one that says if you see a baby lizard in your house it means someone there is having a baby (umm does that count) their is one about phones & funerals...I forgot how it goes exactly....but for example..my dads mom passed away a few years ago...someone had a cellphone that fell into the casket....then the rope (or whatever) that they had lowering her into the ground snapped...so the casket went in sideways (like standing up,cept it was leaned against the sides) and that night everyone on the island that knew here kept getting phone calls...noone on the line just a really odd "faraway' sound is how they described it. It kept going on until that guy got the phone that fell IN disconnected....no joke. Everyone was highly disturbed by it. Rumours were that she was a witch cause alot of strange things happened while she was alive too..
Now..I have gotten really off the sucject....SRY!!!!
One more superstition is to never call ANY name out in the graveyard cause any spirit there will think you are calling to them & follow you home....how odd...anyone heard of that???  :-/

[Yosei]

Crickets and 7-toed cats are lucky.  The one about crickets isn't too odd, it's widely known and they DO make a cheerful sound, but the only thing I had ever heard about 7-toed cats (except from my grandmother, who said they were lucky) was that they tend to die young from genetic diseases---which doesn't sound too lucky!

[mellilotflower]

I think most superstitions are formed much like the forms of behaviour exhibited in skinners boxes... It's more like you don't want to risk doing something that might cause bad luck, just in case.  You don't want to prove it isn't true, just incase, but you can still "believe" it isn't...

[Camille]

A colleague of mine follows an old Irish superstition:  He never goes out the same door he came in.

[Yosei]

Quote

A colleague of mine follows an old Irish superstition:  He never goes out the same door he came in.

I trust he makes an exception if there IS only one door?  I guess that struck me as an amusing thought because I'd heard something like it, not as an Irish superstition, but as a chronic habit of polar bears who break into cabins...

[trudy_causey]

white crickets are bad omens they fortell death in the household. The sound produced when crickets rub their legs together is regarded as a warning of death and severe weather.

[trudy_causey]

the door is the usual entrance by which luck or evil spirits enter or leave the house.many households hang nails in the shape of crosses around the door thinking that they were protecting themselves from evil spirits, they also used horseshoes hung above a doorway, and concealing various witch-repelling objects, such as an open pair of scissors, under the threshold.

[Yosei]

Quote

white crickets are bad omens they fortell death in the household. The sound produced when crickets rub their legs together is regarded as a warning of death and severe weather.

That's interesting, just the opposite of what I'd always been told.  I believe the version I've heard about crickets being always good luck is Chinese orginally, or so I've read...Bats are supposed to be lucky in China, too, but a lot of people in Western cultures find them scary...interesting how these things develop opposite associations for different people...

[trudy_causey]

a black cricket in the home are generally regarded as good omens and it is consequently bad luck to kill one or if one leaves-though some people read their appearance in the home as a portent of evil.

[honeybeary]

curious to know why this one is:

Its bad luck for a groom to see the bride before the wedding on the wedding day!

[trudy_causey]

I looked up in my book of superstions and there is nothing there about the groom seeing the bride before the wedding but there is a host of other superstitions about weddings.