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Old Wives Tales & Superstitions

A few i was brought up with-

Its bad luck to cross on the stairs

If you see a mouse someone will fall pregnant

Its unlucky to bring lilac into the house

If you give someone a purse or a wallet you have to put a coin in it for luck

If someone lends you a plate with food on it, you have to return it with food in it.
 
Don't kill white spiders, they're good luck

If your nose is itchy, you're going to get in a fight
(But this can be averted by kissing a fool)
 
a common one for us is when drinking, you pour the last drop to either the guest or your partner, as it "brings fortune" in chinese culture.

it's more of a tongue in cheek way to motivate basic courtesy imo. another drinking manner is when touching glasses, the junior/inferior always touches their glass below the lip of the the other's. kinda like a sign of submissivness or respect.
 
I thought killing all spiders was bad luck. Lucky the white ones stay outside around here.

My Pops was in the Navy: "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning."

All kidding aside, I believe ouija boards and seances can invite evil entities into your home. That's one thing I stay away from.
 
Kenickie said:
never pick up the glove of yours that YOU dropped, if someone else does it for you, good luck.
Click to expand...

The one day that this happened to me, literally someone else picking up a glove of mine i dropped, i got pulled up by the cops half an hour later and was disqualified from riding/driving. Just sayin'
 
I don't believe any at all now, especially after going through pregnancy. Pretty much every wives tail pregnancy related was a load of crap for me! Everything i experienced pointed towards me having a girl and i ended up with a boy! (i had hopes for a boy anyways so i was not disappointed at all)

But yeah, they're a load of crap. haha!
 
When I lived in Taiwan, my girlfriend taught me a superstition that I still follow: when staying at a hotel, I knock on the door to our room before unlocking and entering it for the first time. This is believed to give a chance for any bad juju left behind by previous guests to flee the room before you enter. My non-Chinese wife was rather confused, then amused, by this the first time she saw me do it. Like many superstitions I suspect, this one has a practical function too -- if you've got the wrong room or have been issued an already-occupied room in error, this practice clears up the problem a lot less awkwardly than just trying your key in the door!

I still say a prayer whenever I see 11:11 on a digital clock, and probably always will.
 
not an old wives tale, but my dad told me of a russian(?) proverb that translates to "a man without a beard is like a woman with"

LOL

searching online i found other similar phrases

"There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless — boys and women — and I am neither one." -Greek saying
"A woman with a beard looks like a man. A man without a beard looks like a woman." - Afghan Saying
 
Three I heard constantly while growing up;

- You must always leave a home/building through the same door you used to enter it.

- Owls are the messengers of death, if one lands near your home it means a family member has recently died.

- Seeing a large black dog while driving late at night is a bad omen.
 
if ants are climbing up to high ground it is going to rain

if the moon is shaped as though it would spill liquid it is going to rain

crossing the path of a black cat is bad luck
 
Use2Be said:
my grandma said if you drop silveware you will have unexpected company, a fork meant it would be a male, a spoon meant it would be a female. as far as I know a knife was not accounted for
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Ive heard this one too. My gran told it to me too...I think she said a knife meant a child though..soemthing ike that
 
blood on the moon -- a reddish orange tint (but not like the harvest moon) is a very bad sign and you should watch yourself, avoid strangers and travel. or that blood on the moon means a violent and bad death near by.
 
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