Do you avoid stepping on cracks in a sidewalk? How comfortable are you around black cats?

Do you walk under or around a ladder?

The mystical and puzzling superstitions and old wives tales of the yonder years still stick with us today.

My grandmother hung a dead snake from the front porch light. She thought it would bring rain.

The snakeskin and skeleton intact hung there for quite a while. I have no clue if it rained or not.

She always said, “If the cows are lying down, the fish are not biting.”

I wondered how the bovine’s choice to lay down or stand up controlled the ability to catch those crappy and bass hiding in the depths of the lake.

Ancient roots

To the ancient world, cracks in sidewalks, soil, and floors signaled a gap in the mystical boundary between the earth realm and the spirit realm and were to be taken seriously.

Stepping on one could bring grave repercussions to you and your family.

Black cats were associated with witches and witchcraft, and were to be avoided at all costs.

Why is Friday the 13th such a bad day?

The roots go back to the Last Supper when Judas was thought to be the 13th guest.

Friday was widely believed to be the day Jesus was crucified and when executions took place.

The #13 and Friday got lumped together as very unlucky.

If you’re good at spelling, the word friggatriskaidekaphobia is the term for fear of Friday the 13th.

Express.co.uk has some background on some of the most common superstitions. Do you knock on wood for good luck?

This belief goes back to a pagan idea that knocking on a tree would call these spirits as protections against misfortunes.

More history

Don’t break that mirror! In ancient Rome, mirrors were supposed to hold pieces of your soul.

They also believed that the body renewed itself every 7 yourselves. If you dropped your mirror, you were going to have 7 years of bad luck.

Beware where you put your ladder. They are quite handy, except if you hold to the belief that if you walked under a ladder, you were going to face death by hanging.

Since ladders were used to remove bodies from the gallows, the area underneath was believed to bring bad luck.

To have bird poo fall on you is supposed to be lucky.

Why?

In the year 236, dove poop helped select a new pope. During the deliberation to choose the new pope, dove poo fell on a farmer and bystander in the crowd.

All of those present saw this as a divine sign from the Holy Spirit, and the nonreligious farmer, Fabian, should be pope.

He was converted into a priest, then pope.

All superstitions are not ancient in origin. The fans of Japan’s baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers, believe the ghost of Colonel Sanders cursed the team because they tossed his statue in a river in 1985.

Perhaps I should test grandma’s theory next summer and hang a dead snake near the chicken pen, just to see if it makes it rain.

It would also serve as a warning to all the other black chicken snakes who like my chicken’s eggs.