Most absurd superstitious you’ve heard

[SunshineSetty]

And... do you believe in any?

I find shoes on the table an odd one. I don’t believe it but it makes me uncomfortable nonetheless I wonder where they come from

Not absurd but the strangest one I came across was when I was pg and my friend came to stay. She was born in The UK but is from a different culture.
We decided to go to The Cinema but she was very upset I wanted to see a scary film as it was bad for my baby. Apparently I was supposed to avoid anything unpleasant on the screen or in books

My nan used to say if you are too much ketchup it would dry your blood up!

@Anthilda

Eating cheese before bed gives you nightmares

I think there's something to that. Heavy food still being digested may disturb your sleep or something.

As a child, I was told that if I wore shoes without socks, my toes would disappear, or my shoes might walk away without me when I took them off. I was then scared at school when were were made to put shoes on bare feet, to walk to the assembly hall for PE.

And also to place a silver coin in a newborn baby's hand to bring him/her prosperity.

Introducing a real choking hazard doesn't sound like the best way to guarantee prosperity to a baby....

Cheese definitely gives me nightmares!

Green. An elderly aunt considered green to be very unlucky, so we had to be careful not to send her Christmas cards etc with too much green on it.

I've never got the whole colours representing something distinctive - whether bad luck, good luck or a sure sign of belief or intention e.g. 'she's wearing blue because she wants to communicate her feelings of painfully unrequited love' or 'he's deliberately worn red trousers as an outward display of his pent-up anger'.

If we're talking something like mid-mauve with purple stripes and orange stars, I completely get it; but not when highly specific emotions and attributes are assuredly ascribed to a very basic and/or primary colour!

I do the magpie here

🙄 let's try again..
I do the magpie greeting except my family always said Good morning Master Jack. I was told you're acknowledging the devil and you won't anger him by ignoring him.

I'm really funny about magpies. Always salute a lone magpie now.
I kept seeing lone magpies for a while. Something crappy happened medical related. when it was done & I came home from hospital no shit about 8-9 magpies were sat on our roof & a couple of months later we did get good news.

Don't put new shoes on the table. I also heard it relates to the dead.

Touch wood goes back to the Viking's.

opening an umbrella indoors would most likely end up with something getting broken or someone getting hit, or the wallpaper ripping or paint getting scratched. I get that one.

the weirdest one I saw was if you drop a knife you have to leave it on the floor, I thought that would cause the bad luck, not prevent it.

DM always said if you drop your gloves it's bad luck to pick them up yourself, someone else has to do it.

I'm not sure how that works if you're out on your own though, are you just supposed to wait around for someone to walk past so they can pick them up for you?

There was a (flawed) logic with the superstition of not washing hair while on your period. It came from a time when there were no showers and a lesser understanding of how the female body works.

It was something about if you were bleeding ‘down there’ and you washed your hair which usually involved putting your head upside down over a bucket/bath, blood would rush to your head but there as there wasn’t as much blood (due to your period) you would faint/pass out.

"It was something about if you were bleeding ‘down there’ and you washed your hair which usually involved putting your head upside down over a bucket/bath, blood would rush to your head but there as there wasn’t as much blood (due to your period) you would faint/pass out."

Ah! There are still some people in the yoga world who say you shouldn't do upside down poses when you have your period for similar reasons.

@PollyannaMk2

Green. An elderly aunt considered green to be very unlucky, so we had to be careful not to send her Christmas cards etc with too much green on it.

My grandmother hated green, but that was because her younger brother was run over and killed crushing the road whilst wearing green.

My mother has one about never buying shoes as a gift as the recipient will eventually walk away from you. One Christmas years ago my sister saved up to buy fancy trainers for her then serious boyfriend. When he ran off the following summer it was apparently the shoes that caused it. According to my mother the relationship breakdown was all my sisters fault as she had cursed it.

There's a very widespread superstition (at least in the UK) that you must not say the q word in hospitals, or all hell immediately breaks out. Yes, I believe in it. Though god knows how many people must have been screaming the q word in nearly every hospital in the land at the start of the year, for this shitstorm to have landed.

Queen? Quorum? Quick? Quogga? Quim? Quango?

Is there a swear word I don't know?

If you put your jumper on backwards you must wear it backwards for the rest of the day or you'll have a day of bad luck.

Oh god is it "quality", that would explain everything!

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

When I was living among people of another (Mediterranean) culture, baby’s face had to be covered if taking it out after dark, though can’t remember whether that was because of night air being ‘dangerous’ or evil spirits. Maybe both. Plus, the baby should have both an ‘eye’ thing (to ward off evil spirits) plus a crucifix pinned to its clothing at all times - covering both bases, so to speak.

More of an old wives’ tale, but was startled in the 60s when my German exchange girl’s mother insisted that washing your hair during your period was dangerous and was thus forbidden. I still vividly recall the younger sister practically having a tantrum at the dinner table because of this.
But I’ve since heard of U.K. mothers saying the same thing. My DM was evidently relatively enlightened.

Were they greeks by any chance?

Quiet 😂 I was reprimanded several times for saying that as a student HCP before I learned.

I salute lone magpies but I think that's about it for superstitions I 'follow'. Thinking now...

When I was a student nurse many moons ago I was told that red and white flowers together in a vase meant a death in the ward, also white madonna lilies.
Putting silver coin into a new baby's hand was very common when I was young.Both of my two collected a lot of money when I first took them outside. Also it was considered bad luck for a baby to brought into someone else's house before he or she was baptised, as ''evil spirits'' were hanging around the poor child, and if a baby cried while being baptised it was considered very lucky for the child.

So many. My grandmother was very superstitious!! Pack of cards in the house was unlucky, no shoes on the table, never look herse drivers in the eye etc

The only one I really bother with is that I go out of my way never to pass a knife or scissors into someone’s hand as it means we will have a row lol !