My informant’s Irish ancestry has a belief about women’s purses. It is seen as bad luck for a woman to leave her purse on the ground, even for a second. Many believe that setting one’s purse on the ground will cause all the money in that purse to “run away”, leaving the owner with nothing. According to my informant, taking care of one’s money is very important to the Irish people, and to set it down, leaving it out of one’s attention and control, is seen as practically throwing money away for the very reason that without a hold on one’s purse, it could easily get lost, or worse be stolen by someone taking advantage of one’s neglectfulness. It seems like putting one’s purse down is about as much bad luck as being ignorant is.