Strange Superstitions

In my old neighborhood, the superstition was that if you drank a full glass of water without a break, you would die.

Being a maverick even back then, I defied it with a great deal of bravado in front of two guys whose mother was one of the big proponents of this superstition. Drank the entire glass of water without a break.

But of course, even if you empty the glass -- when you put it down, a tiny bit of the water that stuck to the sides of the glass will be tugged to the bottom by gravity -- which is what happened.

The two guys explained that if I had finished the last few drops I would be dead -- and then they beat the hell out of me for trying to make a mockery of what their mother taught them.

So now I have this superstition that you shouldn't try to mock someone's mother's superstitions when the mother's sons are around or you'll get an ache in your jaw.

Boy... these are interesting! Green chilies?? Huh! So who is supposed to grow them???

I have heard the superstition about salt spilling... but I heard you were supposed to throw it over your LEFT shoulder, since that was where the devilish imp who tried to get you to do bad things hung out. The good angel is on the right.

Here's something about Opals:

There is a superstition that suggests that it is bad luck to wear an opal if opal is not your birthstone. This superstition probably is not rooted deep in history but only goes back to the early or middle 19th Century. It may even have been an invention of Sir Walter Scott in the novel Anne of Geierstein, published in 1831. It seems that Anne had an opal that that reflected her moods: it shone red when she was angry, blue when she was sad and green when she was happy. When Anne died, the opal faded and lost all of its color. The last observation may have actually been based on a fact: opals can deteriorate and change from a highly colorful, somewhat glassy stone to a rather colorless mass of a chalky silicon dioxide. That is because opals are unstable and are just one of the phases through which gel-like silica (SiO2) can pass on its way to becoming stable crystalline quartz.

I also thought there was a superstition that you shouldn't wear pearls with your wedding dress. Found a website where somebody else had heard that...

Diamonds, not Pearls
Submitted by: Damaris of Puerto Rico
Wearing a pearl on the wedding day means bad luck and tears throughout the marriage. Wearing a diamond means good luck and happiness.

I do think that baseball players may be among the most superstitious. The old manager of our local team wouldn't shave while the team was winning on a road trip.

My ex-boyfriend's mother used to say that Opals are death stones. She would never wear one.

In Israel, superstitions of the Sepharadic Jews are being abused by the Shas religious party for electoral purposes. The Sepharadic rabbis affiliated to this party distribute the so-called "blessed" trinkets against evil eye that must be efficient only if the owner supports Shas. And any verbal attack in media on such traditions (in fact, it is a criminal offense, sheer manipulation of voters' choice by means of blessing, curse, direct bribe, etc. is prohibited by law) is considered a manifestation of racism...
In fact, I wonder how can the clergymen of monotheistic religion be involved in practices that resemble these of the sub-Saharan sorcerers...
Thanks God, Mr. Sharon was brave enough to reject political correctness calculations and did not include Shas into the coalition.

Bigdice, If you can't put your keys on a table, where do you keep them? Never heard this one. It's a doozy.

Gautam, No chilis in the garden? I guess you have to buy them, already grown. So someone else's family is fighting--and all because of your chilis. Shame on you.

Frank, LOL. One of the few superstitions that makes sense! A very practical approach to superstitions.

Piffka, I had an opal pendant, called a floating opal. There were chips of opal in a crystal globe. Liquid in the globe caused the opals to move and sparkle. I loved that pendant. I wore it all the time. One week, a bunch of terrible things happened to me. My mother decided it was the fault of the opal. She begged me not to wear it. I relented only when she agreed to replace it with something equally nice. I got a florentine gold pendant. I kinda like the opal superstition.

Steissd, I think it's a waste of your time and energy to try to make sense of superstition with or without a link to religion. Some cultures seem to have incorporated the two. And logic and sense have nothing to do with it.

Urs53 it was always said in my family that the only people who could safely wear Opals were the people that it was the birth stone for.

"Floatin' Opal" sounds like it would be a great name for a racehorse! I'd bet on her, I'm sure it would have to be a mare.

(I had grand-aunt twins named Opal and Olive. I wonder what their luck was like???)

I had to learn to think of a black cat crossing my path as GOOD LUCK, since I've nearly always had black cats. It still gives me a thrill though and an inadvertent chill to be driving along and have one race in front of me. I also avoid walking between a ladder and a wall, but I always thought it was to protect the person ON the ladder.

I've always thought it amusing when a building doesn't have a 13th floor. Doesn't everybody realize that makes Floor 14 the 13th floor?

The problem is that Judaism prohibits superstitions, amulets, sorcery, and the like things both in the Biblical and Talmudic sources. Therefore, a rabbi involved in the above activities looks like a Catholic priest convincing people to convert to paganry.

mac, your post about buildings that don't have a 13th floor reminded me of a book called The Thirteenth Is Magic, which I read as a child. It was about children who lived in an apartment building, and who discovered that their building actually had a 13th floor, between the 12th and 14th floors, where magical things happened. If my memory is correct (which it probably isn't), the 13th floor was accessible only on the 13th day of each month (kind of like Brigadoon, or Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters at King's Cross station).

Does anyone else remember this book? I've looked for it on used-book websites, but it's apparently almost impossible to find.

I have pretty much everyday superstitions about politicians, lawyers and collection agencies crossing my path,

For my wife, it is leaving a hat on the bed. I think she got that one from seeing 'Drugstore Cowboy' too many times...

Have you ever been to a funeral where someone takes a picture of the deceased in the casket? I hate to admit it because it's really kinda creepy but my mother had photos of some of our relatives. I've asked people about this, (altho' oddly, I don't remember ever asking the source, my mother) why would you want a photo of a dead loved one, but no one could tell me. I finally just chalked it up to some old-fashioned bayou superstition of some kind.
This past January, I went to the funeral of a cousin in Baton Rouge and a relatively young woman who no one seemed to know took not one, not two, but three pictures of him. From different angles! She didn't come to the repast. I was surely looking for her too, prepared to ask her about the photos and what it was supposed to mean, taking pictures of a dead person. Thinking about it now, it's probably best that I didn't get the chance to ask. He was married and she was probably his chickie on the side.
Just tonight, I watched "The Others" with Nicole Kidman and in it, she found an entire photo album of dead people. The housekeeper explained that it was an old belief that if you took a photo of a loved one, you would capture their spirit, and they would live on. Sounds deliciously superstitious, doesn't it? Can anyone comment on this?

Steissd, My great grandfather was an orthodox rabbi. It is from his children and grandchildren that I received all the odd bits of superstition. I don't think that you can separate tradition and culture from religion. This is despite what it says in the Bible or the Talmud. I'm sure that people who follow religions and superstitions see no contradictions in what they do. We are talking about BELIEFS, which are not necessarily logical.

Bree, As I'm sure you know, there are lots of buildings in NYC that don't have a thirteenth floor. Whenever an elevator I'm in skips from 12 to 14, I have to wonder who they think they're kidding.

Cavfancier, My parents wouldn't allow a hat on the bed. Why? I don't know.

eoe, This is completely new to me. Taking photographs of dead people? I never heard of this. Can't imagine what it means. I'm hoping someone else may be able to shed some light on this.

Never put shoes on a bed.

On the sidewalk step on a crack, and the bears will eat you.

eoe, I lived in Baton Rouge for most of my childhood and thru college, and over the years I've attended at least 20 funerals, wakes, and funeral parlor visitations there - of various religious persuasions. I've never seen anyone take a picture of the deceased! If it's a bayou superstition, I've never heard of it. I'll have to call my mom and see what she says about this one. (She's a transplanted New Yorker, but she's lived in Baton Rouge for 35 years.)

oddly enough the photos at the funeral has come up a couple times in the 2002. I had an uncle and a grandmother die. My uncle was a photographer and his widow wanted photos taken, but NOT of Phil. I thought it odd that she had to specify. But, then at Gma's funeral, a couple people took pix of her. Very weird.

We always take pictures of our late relatives in their caskets. It is nothing superstitious. It may sound weird to some, but often people can't get to the funeral and do like to see a picture of their cousin or aunt or nephew for the last time, in their casket. That seems okay to us, we've had a lot of funerals and its no big deal. A relative in my family came to my father's funeral armed with his video camera, so we have much of his "wake" or "viewing" and the funeral on tape. I'm not saying I liked it necessarily, but its most important to realize that every person and every family has different ways of dealing with their grief, so we at least are very accepting of those different ways.

My family is from the american south, and having been to some funerals in other parts of the country, I'm struck by the different ways the funeral, the grief, the mourning are managed in different families. My family at least is very open with everything, encourages children to come, talks and laughs about the deceased, holds their hand in the casket during the viewing if they want, fixes their hair if it wasn't arranged right, etc. I'm not sure of the part religion and superstition play in this, but we just seem more accepting and "comfortable" with the idea of death than other families I've been around.

No offense to whoever said it, but nothing about the funeral, the casket, or the dead body is creepy, scary or weird. Sorry for the cliches, but death is coming to us all, its a part of life, and no reason to make it even scarier than it is already. If taking pictures of the deceased, or putting mementos in the casket, or holding the deceased's hand helps to alleviate the overwhelming grief, thats okay with me. It wasn't superstition that I put some things in my father's casket, I knew he was dead and gone forever, it just made me feel better.

Just for the record, my extended family is very religious, in the southern baptist, far-right, ultra-conservative way of the old south - but I'm an atheist.


<mac - my grandmother was born near Monroe, all my relatives are or were in New Orleans, Gulfport, Jackson, and near Mobile.>

Well Larry, that would explain why no one could give me a definitive answer to why photos are taken of the deceased? Because there probably isn't one. The two great aunts that I recall my mother having pictures of passed away when we lived in Chicago. I was a young child then and don't fully remember but there's the possibility that my mother could not attend their services in La. and the pictures were sent to her, along with the printed programs, as momentoes, and nothing more.
No, there's nothing creepy about the casket, the body, the funeral or death itself, as you say. It's the picturetaking that I just don't get. I'd much prefer seeing pictures of my parents while they were alive. But you're absolutely right. To each his own.
As far as putting things in the casket, I asked my brother to have my mothers' favorite slippers put in her casket. She lost a leg to diabetes shortly before she passed away but I insisted that he have both slippers put in because of course, in Heaven, she would once again be whole.
It may sound nutty but it was very important to me. And he forgot. I wanted to strangle him.

Sorry to hear it. My father always joked that he wanted tools to break out of the casket in case he revived down there. My brother and I both put some things in the casket, can't remember what - maybe a chisel, hammer, screwdriver, etc. It was funny to do and very therapeutic - especially when neither one of us knew the other was doing it and we told each other later. Everybody put something in there as I recall.

bree - the good news is that The Thirteenth Is Magic is available on alibris.com and abebooks.com (If it is the same book you are looking for) - the bad news is that all four copies cost over $200. That must be some book!