My informant is a native of Brazil and is of Portuguese descent. According to her, her grandmother, from whom she learned this superstition, was a fervent Catholic and “knew hundreds of saints and their miracles and for every misfortune or mishap there would be some saint to pray to or a superstition to fix it!” She said superstitions were her grandmother’s specialty. She recalls of her grandmother: “If it was raining hard with thunder and lightning she would go around the house covering the mirrors: they attract the storm.”
I have never heard any superstition quite like this one, though I have heard others that associate omens with mirrors. Certainly I have never associated mirror superstitions like this one with Catholicism. This magic-superstition is probably either taken directly from native lore or is a hybridization of the lore of the Portuguese with that of the native land.
Tag Archives: weather
Omen – San Francisco
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It looks like earthquake weather today.
This is a phrase that Charlenes grandmother used to say to her some mornings when the weather looked a certain way. Charlene grew up in the city of San Francisco, as did many f her relatives before her, including her grandmother. In 1906 there was a huge earthquake in San Francisco, which caused a huge fire that destroyed most of the city. Charlenes grandmother was living in San Francisco at the time. She remembered that the weather was very grey and muggy that day. So, every time the weather was similar, she would say it looks like earthquake weather today.
Charlene said it would scare her because she knew exactly what that meant. Since Charlene had grown up in San Francisco she knew all about the earthquake, plus she had heard all of the stories that her grandmother had told her. The phrase relates to two different identities. The fact that her grandmother would say it and Charlene knew exactly what she was talking about, identified both a residents of San Francisco. They were both well aware of the history of the earthquake in the city. The fact that her grandmother was able sense earthquake weather showed identified her as part of the group of people who had lived through the 1906 earthquake.
When Charlene described the weather she said it was very muggy and foggy. I have spent a lot of time in San Francisco and it is muggy and foggy most days. But, Charlene said that it was a very specific type of weather that only people like her grandma could recognize. It seems quite difficult to distinguish between one foggy day and another, but Charlene said that one of the days that her grandmother said, it looks like earthquake weather today, there was an earthquake.