Informant: “My mom told me that if you where to like leave your house or your apartment complex or whatever, and there is an unusual puddle of water, like just random right, never seen a puddle of water accumulate there before for any reason.. you have no idea why it’s there, but there is a puddle of water… it means that someone deliberately put it there to curse you. Ans so by all means you have to move around the puddle of water you cant cross over it you cant come near and you cant touch it… FYI it’s all about curses”

This story comes from sam’s family, his mother specifically. His family is from Cairo but his parents parents are from the south of Egypt which is the “hicks ” of Egypt. he claims that the south is where more traditional folklore and superstitions come from. His family are Coptic Christians. Sam believes that these superstitions are neither christian nor Muslim but actually developed in ancient Egypt.

This superstition I think could only develop in a country that lacks rain. In a city where it always rains i doubt very much that people would question where a puddle came from. Sam says that puddles are not unusual but that if a puddle forms in an area that you find unusual it means someone has tried to curse you. I have never noticed an unusual puddle, they kin-dove just happen and are a part of the city, but as this account of Egyptian Folklore shows, Egyptian Culture does notice unusual puddles, and over time they have ascribed to it the meaning of an attempted curse. I don’t know how the belief began for obvious reasons but i can definitely see it as an accident that became a belief and then a practice. Maybe someone stepped on an unusual puddle as someone noticed it was unusual and later had an accident, then someone believed this puddle was to blame because of it’s unusualness, then ascribing a sense of witchcraft, after the belief manifested in people i think people began practicing this type of curse by putting water in front of peoples homes and thus cursing them in belief. Also the negative connotations of unusual puddles could be due to the waste of water in a dry climate.