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Bradshaw Library put on a Halloween-themed lunch and learn program on Thursday. Ruth Cook, author of multiple nonfiction history books, gave a presentation to a packed room on superstitions. 

Cook has given talks to various civic and library groups around the state on her books. After being invited to give another talk, despite not having a recent publication to share, she found herself without a topic. The invitation was around Halloween, which Cook saw as an opportunity to do some research into the spooky and strange associated with the holiday, settling on superstitions. 

A researcher at heart, Cook opened with the top five superstitions in the United States. The most prevalent was spilling salt. The superstition goes that the number of grains spilled is the number of tears the spiller will shed. 

The ‘remedy’ for the bad luck caused by spilling salt is pouring salt in your right hand and throwing it over your left shoulder. Cook said the tradition goes back centuries. Medieval Christian cultures believed that the Devil was hiding behind the left shoulder and salt would blind him from doing evil. 

Negative connotations with the word left go back to Roman times. The word for left in Latin, sinestra, is where we get the English word sinister. Some believed the idea of spilled salt being bad luck originated from Leonardo Divinci’s The Last Supper painting. Depicted in the painting is a spilled salt cellar in front of Judas, who would go on to betray Jesus. 

The number two most prevalent superstition is the fear of threes, or bad things happen in threes. The origin for this is fuzzy, but can be seen throughout history. The phrase “three on a match,” means it is bad luck for three people to light their cigarettes on the same match.

Cooks said in WWI, “If [soldiers] lit that match, one guy lit his cigarette, and another guy lit his cigarette, and then a third one…the sniper over on the other side of the battlefield had time to see that light long enough to aim his gun and shoot at the third person.”

The lucky rabbit’s foot comes in at number three most common superstitions. The height of carrying a rabbit’s foot was in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Specifically the foot had to be the left hind foot of a rabbit that was killed on the grave of an evil person. President Grover Cleveland was gifted one from a man that had killed the animal on the gravesite of notorious outlaw, Jesse James. 

Perhaps the most evergreen of the list is Friday the 13th, also known as triskaidekaphobia. Cooks said there were a couple of explanations for the fear of 13, namely that the thirteenth guest at a party will cause trouble. This one also goes back to the Last Supper, as Judas arrived late, becoming the 13th guest at the supper. Another origin goes back to Norse Mythology. 

“Loki was kind of the mischievous God. Every time there was something that would just end up in complete chaos,” Cook said. “According to Norse mythology, Odin and Thor…decided to have a banquet at Valhalla, and they invited 12 other gods to come and celebrate with them. Unfortunately, one of those 12 was not Loki, and he was very upset, so he crashed the party. And you know, everything was in turmoil.” 

The last superstition to grace the list of most prevalent in the U.S. is the luck of ladybugs. According to Cook, the story was insects were feasting on the crops of medieval European farmers, causing poor harvests. The farmers began praying to the Virgin Mary for help. Legend has it that when the insects came in that year, a “swarm of little red bugs with spots,” came behind them and ate the bad insects. 

So one particular year, some of those farmers got together and they prayed to the Virgin Mary to send some remedy to help them with this problem with all the insects. And that particular year, according to the legend, when these evil insects came in, right behind them was a swarm of little red bugs with black, black spots. And they saw that, and they ate up all the bad insects. So they saw that as the answer to their prayer.

Cook spent the rest of the time talking about various good and bad superstitions she came across. When asked what the most unique superstition she came across while researching was, she related an old Dutch one. 

“If you go to little towns or villages around Denmark all year long, they all have a little basket or a box in their pantry or somewhere in the kitchen. And every time they chip a plate or, you know, break a cup…they take it and they put it in that basket or that box,” Cook said. 

On New Year’s Eve, families take the box of shards and walk the streets of the village, throwing the broken pieces at the front doors of their friends and family’s houses. The more broken dishware on your front stoop, the better the year ahead will be. 

Cook laughed, “I would never have guessed that in 100 years.”