Tag Archives: smokers

“Three On a Match” Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Store Clerk
Residence: Palmdale, California
Performance Date: 04/15/19
Primary Language: English

Main Text:

Lighting three cigarettes with the same match is bad luck.

Context:

DS said she heard this over the years of smoking and people had mentioned it to her if she was using matches. She said that she remembers it because she used to be a heavy smoker and it came up fairly often so she would avoid using the same match to light multiple cigarettes just in case in order to avoid any chance of bad luck falling upon her and her family. When I asked her if she would pass this belief along to anyone she said she probably would not because it never really made much sense to her and she does not see many people smoking with matches anymore.

Analysis:

To understand why this piece is passed down it is important to go back to the origins and see where it may have originated from and the theories for why the folk group smokers think “three on a match” is bad luck.

One of the origins of this phrase comes all the way form World War I. If three soldiers were smoking cigarettes during the dark hours of the night then superstition held that one of them was going to die. This is because they believed that striking the match on the box would alert the enemy to the presences of the soldiers and as the matched burned to light the second cigarette the enemy would have time to aim his gun in the direction of where he now knows that the soldiers are. Finally as the third cigarette was being lit up the enemy shooter would be able to see and shoot the third soldier. I think this theory is important because it begins to explain why many smokers in America know and hold this belief because they were taught and/or experienced it way back in the early 1900s. When the war ended in 1918, many of the men who fought in the war came back to the America and shared this superstition they had when out in the battlefield to their families and friends who were also smokers and I believe that this is one of the reasons it caught on initially and still carries on today, even if people do not know why they say it.

Another theory that can be used to analyze how this superstition originated and why it still gets passed along is the theory of the Holy Trinity. Many very religious people that I have known and spoken to in my lifetime believe that using the Holy Trinity symbol (or performing things in threes) as a casual act is very disrespectful to the Holy Law. People who do this they say are helpless in the face of evil (even to the devil himself). To apply this to smoking, this notion has spread and said that those smokers who do light three cigarettes from one match disrespect the Holy Trinity, cause evilness (or bad luck) to come upon them and “light the fires of hell” themselves with that one match that they used. People who happened to be religious who also smoked more likely than not shared this belief with the people that they smoked with and this is how it spread around the smoking community.

The final theory took some research but it explains this folk belief in a more reasonable ( to corporate America at least) way. This theory is about Ivar Kreugar who was a deceitful businessman who bought many matchmaking factories in the 1920’s and monopolized them. This made him rich and powerful to the point where he could spread an entire superstition without question from those he told it to, probably the matchmakers and smokers themselves. The theory goes that Kruegar made up this superstition and then got it to spread among the smoking community as a way for people to use more matches which allows him to sell more matches and make more money.

To summarize, there are three theories that I believe help to explain why this superstition was formed and how it spread to smokers in the United States. The first theory is that during Wold War I this superstition was shared among smokers on the battlefield as a way to make sure that they keep their matches and noises associated with using them hidden from the enemy to not disclose their location and get killed. The second theory is that doing something casual such as lighting a match in threes disrespects Holy Law because of the Holy Trinity and causes evil to come upon you. The third and final theory was that a businessman by the name of Ivar Kreugar monopolized many matchmaking factories in the United States and created this superstition as a way to have people buy more matches so that he could make more money.

A Smoker’s Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 66
Occupation: Machinist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/5/19
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

The following is a conversation with CL that describes his interpretation of a superstition found among smokers.

 

CL: As the story goes, back in World War One, there were three soldiers, I don’t know what army they were fighting for or whatever, but they were all in a trench and they were going to have a cigarette, but they only had one match. So, they lit the match, and the first soldier got his cigarette lit. And across the way, there was another soldier watching and saw the light, so he aimed his rifle at the light. And the second cigarette got lit with the next soldier, and that time the soldier across the way took aim. And then the third soldier got his cigarette lit, and the soldier across the way fired and killed all three soldiers. So, it has become unlucky to light three cigarettes off the same match.

 

EK: Interesting, so do you partake in this superstition yourself?

 

CL: Absolutely. To this day you’ll find people that will- guys sitting around having cigarettes will give a light to one person with a lighter, and then a second person, and then will stop the light and light the third cigarette with a different lighter. But to this day, I’m not sure if this soldier story is true or not, but smokers partake in it all the time.

 

EK: So where did you here this from, other than just being a smoker yourself?

 

CL: That comes down to me from my mom who told me that story when I was much younger. And yeah, I use it myself, so I guess that’s what it means to me, haha.

 

My Interpretation:

As a non-smoker, I’m not familiar with this superstition. However, several family members of mine are smokers and do partake in this superstition, though as I’ve asked around, not many know the root of the superstition like CL. Though I find the superstition to be strange, I think that smokers find the superstition very serious. I assume that they believe that if they don’t follow this rule, that a variety of bad things associated with smoking could happen to them. Happenings such as dropping the match and everything catching on fire, getting lung cancer, or maybe even just losing your lighter or box of cigarettes, would all be motivation for a smoker to follow through on this superstition, because it’s not worth the chance that these things could happen.