It brings luck:

Cutting your hair when the moon is waxing!

Putting money in the pocket of new clothes!

Hanging a horseshoe over the door! Many believe that to hang it with the ends pointing upwards is good luck as it acts as a storage container of sorts for any good luck that happens to be floating by, whereas to hang it with the ends pointing down, is bad luck as all the good luck will fall out.

Meeting a black cat!

Catching falling leaves in autumn! Every leaf means a lucky month next year.

Touching wood!

Finding a clover with four leaves!

It brings misfortune:

Walking under the ladder!

Breaking a mirror brings bad luck for the next seven years!

Seeing one magpie!

Spilling the salt! If you do, you must throw it over your left shoulder to counteract bad luck.

Opening an umbrella inside the house!

Putting new shoes on the table!

Superstitions on St. Valentine’s Day:

If on the 14th of February (St. Valentine’s Day) a girl sees a robin, she will get married to a sailor. If  a girl sees a dove, she will get married to a man with golden heart. If a girl sees a sparrow, she will be married with a poor man who will bring lots of happiness in marriage and life. Not good if the girl, on the 14th of February sees an owl, because she will never get married. If she sees a goldfinch, she will be married with a rich man.

Guess what!

It was once a superstition that if you did not crush the ends of an egg after eating it, a witch would gather the shells and use them to craft a boat that she could use to sail out to sea to raise storms. This is a very ancient superstition which seems to originate in the 1580s. If you shattered the end of the shell, it would create enough holes to make it useless as a boat.

It’s interesting!

We all know of the superstition surrounding the spilling of salt, but here is a slightly more unusual one. It used to be considered bad if you helped another person to the salt – there was even a little phrase that evolved from the superstition: “help to salt, help to sorry.” Salt is such an important part of human life that it is no wonder that it appears so frequently in the history of superstition.