Text: The excerpt below is a performance describing the even vs odd flowers Romanian superstition.

Interviewer: Do you have any folk beliefs of what brings good or bad luck?

Interviewee: And, so like, I brought this up in class on Tuesday, but it’s the, uh, when you bring someone flowers, if it’s an even number, that’s bad luck, because you only bring even numbers to funerals, when you are mourning someone, in Romanian culture, so you’ll always bring odd flowers [when going to an event that is happy].

Interviewer: Do you know where you heard of these beliefs?

Interviewee: Yeah, they’re from my parents, it’s part of the culture, it’s like a very superstitious culture.

Context:

This excerpt is from a conversation during a discussion class of Forms of Folklore. The person interviewed is of Romanian heritage, and grew up in America. They always bring an even number of flowers to funerals, and an odd number to joyous events.

Analysis:

This belief likely is held because the believer likes to feel greater influence over events that they do not affect. The superstition also points to the multiple, competing symbolic meanings of flowers, how flowers are given joyfully to someone you love, but also, they are used to mourn for those who die. These competing use cases resulted in this belief forming, where which circumstance of flowers had to be made clear. It is also interesting how odd is considered lucky, while even is considered unlucky. This folkloric belief, in its focus on odd and even, is extremely similar to and possibly connected to the pulling petals folk activity, where depending on if the number of petals pulled is odd or even, someone does or does not love the ritual performer. Also, the fact that odd in particular is joyful, while even is somber, could have arose from the fact that giving one flower is common, and it would be strange from that to be classified as unlucky, so from there, all odds were made happy, and evens were made unlucky.