Tag Archives: Superstition

Red Sky at Night, Sailors Delight; Red Sky at Dawn, Sailors Take Warning

Nationality: American
Age: 74
Occupation: Consultant
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: 03/15/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Polish

Content:
Informant – “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at dawn, sailor’s take warning.”

Context:
Informant: “This is an old sailor’s saying. Sailors are deeply superstitious people. I’m not sure where I heard it from, it’s just always been around. I’m not sure where it comes from. Maybe it’s because the jet streams blow west to east? The general idea though is that if the sky is red in the morning, that means a storm is coming your way. If it’s red at night, then the next day will be clear.”

Analysis:
There is actually truth to this saying. A red sky at night means that the sun is being refracted through a lot of dust and moisture as it sets. This indicates that a high pressure system is passing, moving west. Good weather will follow. A red sky in the morning however, means that the pressure system is arriving, moving east. This indicates bad weather.

Purses do NOT belong on the ground! – A superstition

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 25
Occupation: Waitress
Residence: Oxnard, California
Performance Date: 04/01/19
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Main Text:

“It is never appropriate to put your purse on the ground because this will bring bad luck.”

 Context: 

DC told me this belief because when I asked her if she had any interesting folk beliefs that she has heard  she said that her mom passed this one along to her and it just stuck with her because she had hear it in other places before too (but she did not name said places). When I asked DC what she believes this folk belief means and why she thinks it has been passed along in her family and culture she responded, “I’ve never really questioned why I shouldn’t put it on the ground, maybe it is just so it doesn’t get dirty or so someone doesn’t steal it”. I also asked DC if she would tell this folk belief to someone else and why, and she responded that she probably would if she knew them well enough and felt comfortable doing so because she would not want to risk someone getting bad luck when it was onto a simple sentence that she had to say to them in order for them not to.

Analysis:

The idea behind the purse on the floor is that it means bad luck but I believe that more specifically this “bad luck” that is references has to do with financial encounters. I think that putting one’s purse down symbolically represents just leaving money laying around and having disregard towards wealth and because of this bad financial luck will be brought upon any person who leaves their purse on the ground. Another reasonable explanation for the “bad luck” part of this folk belief is that leaving your purse one the ground literally makes it available as easy access to thieves who can steal it in an instant, which is the bad luck.

Another saying that is very similar to this one that I have heard is ” A purse on the floor is money out the door” and I think that this saying segue into another reason that someone would say putting a purse on the floor is bad luck. This reason is that purses have fairly high re-sale values and according to what I have heard from my own family and read online it is possible to resell a purse back for more than half of their original value. This however is only true if it is kept in good condition, meaning not places in places that would cause turmoil to the bag or places that carry a lot of diseases, such as the floor itself. So looking at this folk belief from a financial perspective it makes sense that this would be passed along because it helps to save money for individuals who may need it later on and selling a purse back would be one way to get it.

In addition to the three other reasons I have provided for what I think this saying means and why I believe it continues to be passed down, another fair reason would be the pride found within cultures for the items that they have bought, earned, value and/or were gifted. To put this into context, DC is a Mexican woman who came to the United States at a very young age with her parents meaning they had to start in a new country from scratch. Whatever money they had to spend on basic necessities and luxury items such as purses themselves, they earned and this is the case for many immigrant families. It would make sense for this folk belief to be passed along as a way to teach people to take care of the nice things that they have and that they have earned, because if you don’t and the purse gets ruined it is basically like money out of your own pocket.

Right Foot First – An Ice Skating Superstition and Ritual

Nationality: Persian
Age: 22
Occupation: University Student
Residence: San Diego
Performance Date: 4/11/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Farsi

The following informant is a 22-year-old student who competed in ice skating throughout her childhood and well into her teenage years and continues to ice skate recreationally now. She is describing a common superstition she and some of her teammates have. This is a transcription of our conversation, she is identified as S and I am identified as K:

S: One superstition that I have always had when I used to ice skate was that I always used to put my right skate on and tie up the laces before putting on my left skate. I made sure I always did that.

K: What would happen if you put your left skate on first?

S: I just had this belief that if I put my left skate on first, then I would not have as good of a skate, or I would mess up and risk hurting myself. I always thought oh my god you have to put your right skate on first

K: Were you the only one to have this superstition or did your teammates also share it?

S: I’m not sure if other people shared my superstition specifically, but some of my other teammates had similar superstitions. Like my friend J, when she steps on to the ice, she always puts her right foot down first and never the left first for the same reason I put my skates on right first. I, and a lot of the other girls, also followed her superstition as well. Which is probably where I got my superstition about skates.

K: Would you only do this before a competition or anytime you put on skates and stepped on to the ice?

S: Oh, every time I put on skates and went on the ice. I’ve been doing it for years now that I don’t have to worry about accidently putting my left skate on first because I have trained myself to always put my right skate on first and step with my right foot first.

S: One more thing, I am not sure why my superstition has to do with the right-side, maybe it’s because I’m right handed… but that doesn’t really make sense because my friend J is left handed… I honestly don’t know

Context:

This conversation took place at a café one evening. The informant brought up superstitions and I asked if she would like to participate in the folklore collection project. The conversation was recorded and transcribed. Although she only acts out the ritual when she ice-skates.

Thoughts:

I find her superstition about always doing things on the right side first very fascinating, along with her reasoning, that she later disagrees with. But maybe she is not wrong, It seems pretty obvious that if you are right-hand dominant that you would consider your right side to bring good luck and your left side to bring bad luck. But how would this explain her friend. Or maybe in our everyday life we tend to go from right to left, like reading English, her first language, you always read right to left, reading left to right just would not make sense.

Glasses, Apples, and Parking Spaces – Oh My!

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Southern California
Performance Date: April 24, 2018
Primary Language: English

This friend of mine has always been one of the most superstitious people I know. Her childhood was split between two households, each with their own unique beliefs and superstitions. Having been quite close for the past few years, I’ve heard innumerable stories regarding strange folk-beliefs her parents taught her as a little girl.

The following was recorded by hand during a group interview with 4 other of our friends in the common area of a 6-person USC Village apartment.

“I think it’s bad luck to wear other people’s glasses because you’re trying to see more of the world than you’re meant to see. Why would you try to see the world through other people’s eyes? It’s the principle of the thing. Why do I have superstitions? Because I don’t have a religion. My dad is really superstitious because he’s really OCD. So like my whole life, we weren’t allowed to eat apples in the house because he thought apples brought a mean energy. He’d always say that they were rude. And we weren’t allowed to park in spaces that were diagonal. He would not park in spaces that had that bar – he’d freak out.”

It’s interesting to view this piece as a sort of cause-and-effect type of deal. Her dad is superstitious because he’s OCD, therefore, he has lots of odd little habits and preferences that was interpreted by my friend as superstition (whether she or her father was the source of this conclusion has been lost to the sands of time). These superstitions bred more superstition – the one about the glasses is an original – which has been passed on to her friends and classmates, and may spread throughout the world. Her father’s condition has created a traceable line of superstitions that have the potential to spread globally. It’s fascinating to witness the overlap and snowballing effect that a few small beliefs can have.

Let Snacks Alone

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Southern California
Performance Date: April 24, 2018
Primary Language: English

This friend of mine has always been one of the most superstitious people I know. Her childhood was split between two households, each with their own unique beliefs and superstitions. Having been quite close for the past few years, I’ve heard innumerable stories regarding strange folk-beliefs her parents taught her as a little girl.

The following was recorded by hand during a group interview with 4 other of our friends in the common area of a 6-person USC Village apartment.

“I think it’s bad luck to open people’s food and eat it before they do. Like if Nas buys a bag of goldfish, and I take it and open it, and eat it. One time in 7th grade, my best friend, Rocky, and I were sharing a bag of pretzel thins. She took it from me, opened it during a movie, and immediately after the movie she had her period. My mom said it was just us growing up. Later, I did it to someone else, I opened their bag and took a test and then I got an F on a test. This was back in middle school. I believe in signs. If you follow signs religiously, it’ll be good. I don’t think any of my superstitions allow me to have a crutch, religion is a crutch.”

It’s interesting to hear first-hand how some superstitions come into being outright. As far as I can tell from online research, no one believes that eating another person’s food before they do is bad luck. My friend came to this conclusion herself after the above anecdotes played themselves out. She strung together two ‘signs’ in order to formulate an original belief. And she’s passed it on to me! Whenever I go out to eat, and someone’s food arrives before mine, I have the urge to steal a fry. Before I do, however, a little voice in the back of my head reminds me of my friend’s experiences and asks, ‘what if?’. And so I leave the fry.

I tried explaining to her how her superstitions sometimes do act as crutches. As in the case of the test, where she believed she failed due to her opening of someone else’s bag of chips. However, she would have none of it. And insisted that her superstitions served only to explain, never to redact the blame.