How did superstitions origination? There are many stories placed behind superstitions, including the ones given below, but there is always more to the stories that have been lost in the centuries.
Superstition Traced To Its Origin
“The true origin of superstition is to be found in early man’s effort to explain nature and his own existence, in the desire to propitiate fate and invite fortune, in the wish to avoid evils he could not understand, and in the unavoidable attempt to pry into the future.”
Thus in one sentence T. Sharper Knowlson explains the whole theory of the subject he has chosen for his latest book, “The Origin of Popular superstition.” He goes on, in the most readable and interesting way in the world, says the London Express, to trace back all our old superstitions and superstitious customs, and our ideas about divinations and omens of all sorts to their source.
Custom of Engagement Rings
Why do we give and wear engagement rings – those of us who court and are courted? Because rings have figured in pre-marriage rites from remote antiquity, though the old custom was for engaged people to exchange rings. As to why or when men refused to wear engagement rings there is no information; possibly the reason is man’s natural aversion to signs of bondage, and his equally natural desire to hold women in bondage.
Kissing of the Bride
Man has foolishly grown shy of another good old custom – the kissing of the bride. The custom goes back to the Romans; it was commonly observed in the middle ages, and it seems a thousand pities it should now be dying. The wedding ring also has a heathen origin, and on this account it came very near to being abolished in the days of stern old Cromwell.
Tubal Cain, the story goes, made the first wedding ring, and the idea in his mind is thus expressed in an old treatise: “The form of the ring being circular, that is, round and without end, importeth thus much, that their mutual love and hearty affection should roundly flow from the one to the other as in a circle, and that continually and forever.”
Shoe Throwing
Why do we throw a shoe at a departing bride and bridegroom? Possibly because the Jews of old confirmed a sale by the giving of a shoe or sandal: “This was a testimonial in Israel.” In Anglo-Saxon marriages the bride’s father delivered her shoe to the bridegroom, who touched her head with it – not too severely, let us hope – in token of his authority.
Destiny
Some of us believe that we can trace destiny in the figures of personal history – at least this superstition is popular as a social diversion. If goes back to Pythagoras and certainly the system is interesting. Take Napoleon III. He was born in 1808, assumed the empire in 1852, and lost the empire in 1860. Add 1 plus 8 plus 0 plus 8 to1852 and the fateful date, 1869, results. The Empress Eugenie was born in 1826 and married to the emperor in 1853 – the numerals added together in each case, and then added respectively to 1852, yield again the fateful date, 1869. Corresponding dates and events in the life of Louis Philippe give as curious prophetical results.
Breaking Mirrors
When they break mirrors, superstitious folk shudder – it is an ill starred omen. Here the reason is simple – looking glasses have always been used in divinations, and to break one is to break the means of knowing the will of the gods. When Napoleon broke the glass of Josephine’s portrait he never rested until a courier, whose he dispatched at hot haste, assured him of her safety, so strong was the impression of her death on his mind.
Spilled Salt
Some of us shiver when we spill salt. Salt was an element in the old sacrificial rites of the Greeks and the Romans – and flour and salt were offered to propitiate the wrath of infernal gods; hence no doubt arose the idea that to spill the peace offering meant bad luck. Then, again, salt was the symbol of friendship, and if you upset the salt you broke friendship’s bonds. The old idea was that by throwing spilt salt over the left shoulder one appeased the devil. In Da Vinci’s picture of the Last Supper, Judas is shown overturning the salt, and this may have given new life to the superstition.
Horses and Dogs
Horses have often been reported to tremble when near dead human bodies, though the bodies were invisible. We have reasons to think that dogs and horses have a sensitiveness – as for coming storms – unknown to man. This was noticed of old, hence the idea that distressed howling of dogs presaged death.
More than one lingering superstition is referred to in these Shakespearean lines:
“The owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign;
The night crow cried, aboding luckless time.
Dogs howled, and hideous tempests shoot down trees.”
Owls
The owl was reckoned a most abominable and unlucky bird. One was seen once in the capital at Rome, and the whole city underwent a lustration or humiliation to avert the threatened evil. The howling of dogs without apparent cause meant ill luck for those newly born or death for the aged. An old writer has it: “Odd and unaccountable as it may seem, those animals scent death, even before it seizes a person.”
Black Cats
Black cats are for luck. Prince Ranjitsinghi, as we used to call him, claims that twice in succession the timely appearance of a black cat won a county cricket match for Sussex. The idea goes back to Egypt’s sacred cats. The brain of a black cat was an important item in the concoctions brewed by witches and hags.
Bees
Bees foretell many fates. When the bees in a farmer’s hive die, superstition says he will soon be obliged to move from the farm. The origin of this idea may have arisen from the fact that a hive of bees rarely dies unless the season is so bad as to be disastrous to farming, and after a bad season yearly tenants commonly seek fortunes in fresh farms.
Source: The San Francisco call. (San Francisco [Calif.]), 30 Oct. 1910.
