Superstitions C - L

CANDLE	If a candle lighted as part of a ceremony blows out, it is a sign that evil spirits are nearby.
CALF	If the first calf born during the winter is white, the winter will be a bad one.
CAT	If a black cat walks towards you, it brings good fortune, but if it walks away, it takes the good luck with it.
	Keep cats away from babies because they "suck the breath" of the child.
	A cat onboard a ship is considered to bring luck.
CHEEKS	If your cheeks suddenly feel on fire, someone is talking about you.
CHILL	If you get a chill up your back or goosebumps, it means that someone is walking over your grave.
CHIMNEY SWEEP	It's very lucky to meet a chimney sweep by chance. Make a wish when sighting one, and the wish will come true.
CIGARETTES	It is bad luck to light three cigarettes with the same match.
CIRCLE	Evil spirits can't harm you when you stand inside a circle.
CLOCK	If a clock which has not been working suddenly chimes, there will be a death in the family.
CLOVER	It's good luck to find a four-leaf clover.
	Clover protects human beings and animals from the spell of magicians and the wiles of fairies, and brings good luck to those who keep it in the house.
COIN	It's bad luck to pick up a coin if it's tails side up. Good luck comes if it's heads up.
COMB	To drop a comb while you are combing your hair is a sign of a coming disappointment.
COUGH	To cure a cough: take a hair from the coughing person's head, put it between two slices of buttered bread, feed it to a dog, and say, "Eat well you hound, may you be sick and I be sound."
COW	Cows lifting their tails is a sure sign that rain is coming.
CRACK	Don't step on a crack on a sidewalk or walkway.
	Step on a crack Break your mother's back.
CRICKET	A cricket in the house brings good luck.
COUNTING CROWS	One's bad, Two's luck, Three's health, Four's wealth, Five's sickness, Six is death.

DANDELION	Pick a dandelion that has gone to seed. Take a deep breath and blow the seeds into the wind. Count the seeds that remain on the stem. That is the number of children you will have.
DEATH	Superstitions about death
DOG	A dog howling at night when someone in the house is sick is a bad omen.
DOOR	It's bad luck to leave a house through a different door than the one used to come into it.
DREAMS	The meaning of dreams and dream superstitions
EARS	If your right ear itches, someone is speaking well of you.
	If your left ear itches, someone is speaking ill of you.
	Left for love and right for spite: Left or right, good at night.
EASTER	For good luck throughout the year, wear new clothes on Easter.
ELEPHANT	Pictures of an elephant bring luck, but only if they face a door.
EYE	If your right eye twitches there will soon be a birth in the family. If the left eye twitches there will soon be a death in the family.
	To cure a sty, stand at a crossroads and recite Sty, sty, leave my eye Take the next one coming by.
EYELASH	If an eyelash falls out, put it on the back of the hand, make a wish and throw it over your shoulder. If it flies off the hand the wish will be granted.
FINGERNAILS	It is bad luck to cut your fingernails on Friday or Sunday.
	Fingernail cuttings should be saved, burned, or buried.
FISH	A fish should always be eaten from the head toward the tail.
	Dream of fish: someone you know is pregnant.
FISHING	Throw back the first fish you catch then you'll be lucky the whole day fishing.
	If you count the number of fish you caught, you will catch no more that day.
	It's bad luck to say the word "pig" while fishing at sea.
FLAG	It brings bad luck for a flag to touch the ground.
FLOWER	First Flower of Spring: The day you find the first flower of the season can be used as an omen: Monday means good fortune, Tuesday means greatest attempts will be successful, Wednesday means marriage, Thursday means warning of small profits, Friday means wealth, Saturday means misfortune, Sunday means excellent luck for weeks.
FOOT	If the bottom of your right foot itches, you are going to take a trip.
FORK	To drop a fork means a man is coming to visit.

FRIDAY	A bed changed on Friday will bring bad dreams.
	Any ship that sails on Friday will have bad luck.
	You should never start a trip on Friday or you will meet misfortune.
	Never start to make a garment on Friday unless you can finish it the same day.
FRIDAY THE 13TH - how did Friday the thirteenth become such an unlucky day?
	fear of Friday the 13th is rooted in ancient, separate bad-luck associations with the number 13 and the day Friday. The two unlucky entities combine to make one super unlucky day.
	There is a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Balder died and the Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned.
	There is a Biblical reference to the unlucky number 13. Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th guest to the Last Supper.
	A particularly bad Friday the 13th occurred in the middle ages. On a Friday the 13th in 1306, King Philip of France arrested the revered Knights Templar and began torturing them, marking the occasion as a day of evil.
	In ancient Rome, witches reportedly gathered in groups of 12. The 13th was believed to be the devil.
	Both Friday and the number 13 were once closely associated with capital punishment. In British tradition, Friday was the conventional day for public hangings, and there were supposedly 13 steps leading up to the noose.
	It is traditionally believed that Eve tempted Adam with the apple on a Friday. Tradition also has it that the Flood in the Bible, the confusion at the Tower of Babel, and the death of Jesus Christ all took place on Friday.
	Numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus. In exceeding 12 by 1, 13's association with bad luck has to do with just being a little beyond completeness.
FRIDAY THE 13TH - how is fear of the number thirteen demonstarted?
	More than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor.
	Many airports skip the 13th gate.
	Airplanes have no 13th aisle.
	Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13.
	Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.
	On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half.
	Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue
	In France, socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) once made themselves available as 14th guests to keep a dinner party from an unlucky fate.
	Many triskaidekaphobes, as those who fear the unlucky integer are known, point to the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.
	If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck . Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names.
FROG	A frog brings good luck to the house it enters.
	The dried body of a frog worn in a silk bag around the neck averts epilepsy and other fits.
GOOD FRIDAY (The Friday before Easter)	A child born on Good Friday and baptized on Easter Sunday has a gift of healing. If a boy, he should go into the ministry.
	Cut your hair on Good Friday to prevent headaches in the year to come
	A person who dies on Good Friday will go right to heaven.
	Shed no blood on Good Friday, work no wood, hammer no nail.
HAIR	Pulling out a gray or white hair will cause ten more to grow in its place.
HAND	If the palm of your right hand itches it means you will soon be getting money.
	If the palm of your left hand itches it means you will soon be paying out money.
HORSESHOE	A horseshoe, hung above the doorway, will bring good luck to a home. In most of Europe protective horseshoes are placed in a downward facing position, but in some parts of Ireland and Britain people believe that the shoes must be turned upward or "the luck will run out."
	A horseshoe hung in the bedroom will keep nightmares away.
ITCH	If your nose itches you will soon be kissed by a fool.
	If your nose itches Your mouth is in danger. You'll kiss a fool, And meet a stranger. Rub an itch to wood It will come to good.
IVY	Ivy growing on a house protects the inhabitants from witchcraft and evil.
KNIFE	A knife as a gift from a lover means that the love will soon end.
	A knife placed under the bed during childbirth will ease the pain of labor.
	If a friend gives you a knife, you should give him a coin, or your friendship will soon be broken.
	It will cause a quarrel if knives are crossed at the table.
	It is bad luck to close a pocket knife unless you were the one who opened it.
	Knife falls, gentleman calls; Fork falls, lady calls; Spoon falls, baby calls.
KNITTING	It's bad luck to leave a project unfinished. The intended recepient will get bad luck from the unfinished item.
	Stabbing your needles though your yarn balls brings bad luck to anyone who wears something made from that yarn.
	Don't knit a pair of socks for your boyfriend or he'll walk away from you.
	If you knit one of your own hairs into a garment, it will bind the recipient to you.
	Knitting for children you may have in the future, but before you are pregnant, is bad luck (it may prevent one from getting pregnant, or bring ill health to the baby).
LADDER	It is bad luck to walk under a ladder.
LADYBUG	If a young girl catches a ladybug and then releases it, the direction in which it flies away will be the direction from which her future husband will come.
	It is bad luck to kill a ladybug.
	Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, Your children all roam.
LEAF	If you catch a falling leaf on the first day of autumn you will not catch a cold all winter.
LETTUCE	Lettuce is believed to have magical and healing properties, including the power to arouse love and counteract the effects of wine.
	Lettuce promotes child bearing if eaten by young women, and certain types of salad can bring on labor in pregnant women.
LIE	Cross my heart and hope to die, Cut my throat if I tell a lie.
LIZARD	To dream of a lizard is a sign that you have a secret enemy.

old wives tale beliefs and misconceptions from A to B

ACORN	An acorn should be carried to bring luck and ensure a long life.
	An acorn at the window will keep lightning out
AMBER	Amber beads, worn as a necklace, can protect against illness or cure colds.
AMBULANCE	Seeing an ambulance is very unlucky unless you pinch your nose or hold your breath until you see a black or a brown dog.
	Touch your toes Touch your nose Never go in one of those Until you see a dog.
APPLE	Think of five or six names of boys or girls you might marry, As you twist the stem of an apple, recite the names until the stem comes off. You will marry the person whose name you were saying when the stem fell off.
	An apple a day Keeps the doctor away.
	If you cut an apple in half and count how many seeds are inside, you will also know how many children you will have.
BABY	To predict the sex of a baby: Suspend a wedding band held by a piece of thread over the palm of the pregnant girl. If the ring swings in an oval or circular motion the baby will be a girl. If the ring swings in a straight line the baby will be a boy.
BASEBALL BAT	Spit on a new bat before using it for the first time to make it lucky
BED	It's bad luck to put a hat on a bed.
	If you make a bedspread, or a quilt, be sure to finish it or marriage will never come to you
	Placing a bed facing north and south brings misfortune.
	You must get out of bed on the same side that you get in or you will have bad luck.
	When making the bed, don't interrupt your work, or you will spend a restless night in it.
BEE	If a bee enters your home, it's a sign that you will soon have a visitor. If you kill the bee, you will have bad luck, or the visitor will be unpleasant.
	A swarm of bees settling on a roof is an omen that the house will burn down.
BELL	The sound of bells drives away demons because they're afraid of the loud noise.
	When a bell rings, a new angel has received his wings.
BIRD	A bird in the house is a sign of a death.
	If a robin flies into a room through a window, death will shortly follow.
BIRTH	Monday's child is fair of face; Tuesday's child is full of grace; Wednesday's child is full of woe; Thursday's child has far to go; Friday's child is loving and giving; Saturday's child works hard for a living. But the child that is born on the Sabbath day is fair and wise, good and gay.
BIRTHDAY CAKE	If you blow out all the candles on your birthday cake with the first puff you will get your wish.
BLARNEY STONE	The Blarney Stone is a stone set in the wall of the Blarney Castle tower in the Irish village of Blarney. Kissing the stone is supposed to bring the kisser the gift of persuasive eloquence (blarney.)
BLUE	To protect yourself from witches, wear a blue bead.
	Touch blue And your wish Will come true.
BREAD	Before slicing a new loaf of bread, make the sign of the cross on it.
	A loaf of bread should never be turned upside down after a slice has been cut from it.

BRIDE	Bridal & wedding superstitions
BRIDGE	If you say good-bye to a friend on a bridge, you will never see each other again.
BROOM	Do not lean a broom against a bed. The evil spirits in the broom will cast a spell on the bed.
	If you sweep trash out the door after dark, it will bring a stranger to visit.
	If someone is sweeping the floor and sweeps over your feet, you'll never get married.
	Never take a broom along when you move. Throw it out and buy a new one.
	To prevent an unwelcome guest from returning, sweep out the room they stayed in immediately after they leave.
BUTTERFLY	If the first butterfly you see in the year is white, you will have good luck all year.

Few knwon super superstition

SOme people believe tha a person with a wide thumb is supposed to be a maony maker and good provider.

some people  will not eat meat of a black chicken because they believe that the chicken iz either tainted or too coarse.


some people believe that never allow 2 people to comb your hair at the same time or you will become very ill or die

about superstition

Superstition is the belief in supernatural causality—that one event causes another without any natural process linking the two events—such as astrology, religion, omens, witchcraft, prophecies, etc., that contradicts natural science.^[1]
Opposition to superstition was central to 17th century rationalist Benedict de Spinoza^[2] and the intellectuals of the 18th century Age of Enlightenment. Some of the philosophers at that time rejected any belief in miracles, revelation, magic, or the supernatural, as "superstition," as well as unreasoned Christian doctrine.^[3]
The word superstition is sometimes used to refer to religious practices (e.g., Voodoo) other than the one prevailing in a given society (e.g., Christianity in western culture), although the prevailing religion may contain just as many superstitious beliefs.^[1] It is also commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, prophecy and spiritual beings, particularly the belief that future events can be foretold by specific (apparently) unrelated prior events.

17. Etymology

    
    Some cultures consider black cats to signify good or bad luck
    The word superstition is first used in English in the 15th century, modelled after an earlier French superstition. The earliest known use as an English noun occurs in Friar Daw's Reply (ca. 1420), where the foure general synnes are enumerated as Cediciouns, supersticions, þe glotouns, & þe proude. The French word, together with its Romance cognates (Italian superstizione, Spanish superstición, Portuguese superstição, Catalan superstició) continues Latin superstitio. From its first use in the Classical Latin of Livy and Ovid (1st century BC), the term is used in the pejorative sense it still holds today, of an excessive fear of the gods or unreasonable religious belief, as opposed to religio, the proper, reasonable awe of the gods.
    While the formation of the Latin word is clear, from the verb super-stare, "to stand over, stand upon; survive", its original intended sense is less than clear.
    It can be interpreted as "‘standing over a thing in amazement or awe",^[5] but other possibilities have been suggested, e.g. the sense of excess, i.e. over scrupulousness or over-ceremoniousness in the performing of religious rites, or else the survival of old, irrational religious habits.^[6][7]
    Cicero derived the term from superstitiosi, lit. those who are "left over", i.e. "survivors", "descendants", connecting it with excessive anxiety of parents in hoping that their children would survive them to perform their necessary funerary rites.^[8]
    The Latin verb superstare itself is comparatively young, being "perhaps not ante-Augustan", first found in Livy, and the meaning "to survive" is even younger, found in late or ecclesiastical Latin, for the first time in Ennodius. The use of the noun by Cicero and Horace thus predates the first attestation of the verb.^{[citation needed]}
    The term superstitio, or superstitio vana "vain superstition", was applied in the 1st century to those religious cults in the Roman Empire which were officially outlawed. This concerned the religion of the druids in particular, which was described as a superstitio vana by Tacitus, and Early Christianity, outlawed as a superstitio Iudaica in AD 80 by Domitian.
    

    Superstition and religion

    See also: Evolutionary psychology of religion and Evolutionary origin of religions
    Greek and Roman polytheists, who modeled their relations with the gods on political and social terms, scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious master. Such fear of the gods was what the Romans meant by "superstition" (Veyne 1987, p. 211).
    Diderot's Encyclopédie defines superstition as "any excess of religion in general", and links it specifically with paganism.^[9]
    In his Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther (who called the papacy "that fountain and source of all superstitions") accuses the popes of superstition:
    

    "For there was scarce another of the celebrated bishoprics that had so few learned pontiffs; only in violence, intrigue, and superstition has it hitherto surpassed the rest. For the men who occupied the Roman See a thousand years ago differ so vastly from those who have since come into power, that one is compelled to refuse the name of Roman pontiff either to the former or to the latter.^[10]”
    

    The current Catechism of the Catholic Church considers superstition to be sinful in the sense that it denotes a lack of trust in the divine providence of God and, as such, is a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments, defining superstition as "a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110). The Catechism attempts to dispel commonly held preconceptions or misunderstandings about Catholic doctrine relating to superstitious practices:
    

    Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. Matthew 23:16–22 (para. #2111)
    

    Superstition and folklore

    Main article: Folk religion
    As discussed above, there is a thin line of distinction between the concept of superstition and religion. What is fully accepted as genuine religious statement may be seen as poor superstition by those who do not share the same faith. Since there are no generally agreed proper or accepted religious standards among people of different cultural backgrounds, the very notion of what is a superstitious behavior is relative to local culture. In this sense, Christian theology will interpret African cults as pure superstition while an evangelical Christian will see as meaningless the Catholic ritual of crossing oneself (the Sign of the cross) when going by a church. With the development of folklore studies in the late 18th century, use of the derogatory term superstition was sometimes replaced by the neutral term "folk belief", an attempt to go over local cultural biases. Both terms remain in use; thus, describing a practice such as the crossing fingers to nullify a promise as "folk belief" implies a neutral description from the perspective of ethnology or folklore studies, while calling the same thing a "superstition" implies its rejection as irrational.
    

    Superstition and psychology

    Main articles: Magical thinking, Placebo and Effective theory
    In 1948, behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner published an article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, in which he described his pigeons exhibiting what appeared to be superstitious behaviour. One pigeon was making turns in its cage, another would swing its head in a pendulum motion, while others also displayed a variety of other behaviours. Because these behaviors were all done ritualistically in an attempt to receive food from a dispenser, even though the dispenser had already been programmed to release food at set time intervals regardless of the pigeons' actions, Skinner believed that the pigeons were trying to influence their feeding schedule by performing these actions. He then extended this as a proposition regarding the nature of superstitious behavior in humans.^[11]
    Skinner's theory regarding superstition being the nature of the pigeons' behaviour has been challenged by other psychologists such as Staddon and Simmelhag, who theorised an alternative explanation for the pigeons' behaviour.^[12]
    Despite challenges to Skinner's interpretation of the root of his pigeons' superstitious behaviour, his conception of the reinforcement schedule has been used to explain superstitious behaviour in humans. Originally, in Skinner's animal research, "some pigeons responded up to 10,000 times without reinforcement when they had originally been conditioned on an intermittent reinforcement basis."^[13] Compared to the other reinforcement schedules (e.g., fixed ratio, fixed interval), these behaviours were also the most resistant to extinction.^[13] This is called the partial reinforcement effect, and this has been used to explain superstitious behaviour in humans. To be more precise, this effect means that, whenever an individual performs an action expecting a reinforcement, and none seems forthcoming, it actually creates a sense of persistence within the individual.^[14] This strongly parallels superstitious behaviour in humans because the individual feels that, by continuing this action, reinforcement will happen; or that reinforcement has come at certain times in the past as a result of this action, although not all the time, but this may be one of those times.
    From a simpler perspective, natural selection will tend to reinforce a tendency to generate weak associations. If there is a strong survival advantage to making correct associations, then this will outweigh the negatives of making many incorrect, "superstitious" associations.^[15] It has also been argued that there may be connections between OCD and superstition.^[16] This may be connected to hygiene.
    

    Superstition and politics

    Ancient greek historian Polybius in his Histories uses the term superstition explaining that in Ancient Rome that belief maintained the cohesion of the Empire, operating as an instrumentum regni.^[17]
    

    References

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18. Vyse, Stuart A (2000). Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 19–22. ISBN 978-0-1951-3634-0.
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20. Benedictus de Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, namely the preface.
21. 
    
22. Wilson, Helen Judy; Reill, Peter Hanns. Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. New York: Facts on File Inc. p. 577. ISBN 0-8160-5335-9. …equating all Christian beliefs except those accessible to unaided reason with superstition…
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24. Vyse, Stuart A (2000). Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 5, 52. ISBN 978-0-1951-3634-0.
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26. "orig. a standing still over or by a thing; hence, amazement, wonder, dread, esp. of the divine or supernatural." Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary.
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28. Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 1982.
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30. Turcan, Robert (1996). The Cults of the Roman Empire. Nevill, Antonia (trans.). Oxford, England: Blackwell. pp. 10–12. ISBN 0-631-20047-9.. Oxford English Dictionary (Second ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 1989. The etymological meaning of L. superstitio is perhaps ‘standing over a thing in amazement or awe.’ Other interpretations of the literal meaning have been proposed, e.g., ‘excess in devotion, over-scrupulousness or over-ceremoniousness in religion’ and ‘the survival of old religious habits in the midst of a new order of things’; but such ideas are foreign to ancient Roman thought.
31. 
    
32. Cicero, De Natura Deorum II, 28 (32), quoted in Wagenvoort, Hendrik (1980). Pietas: selected studies in Roman religion. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. p. 236. ISBN 978-90-04-06195-8.
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36. Science Discovers God? Works of Martin Luther - a prelude on the Babylonian captivity of the church definition - Introduction. godrules.net
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38. Skinner, B. F. (1948). "'Superstition' in the Pigeon". Journal of Experimental Psychology 38 (2): 168–172. doi:10.1037/h0055873. PMID 18913665.
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40. Staddon, J. E. & Simmelhag, V. L. (1971). "The 'supersitition' experiment: A reexamination of its implications for the principles of adaptive behaviour". Psychological Review 78 (1): 3–43. doi:10.1037/h0030305.
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42. Schultz & Schultz (2004, 238).^{[full citation needed]}
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46. Foster, Kevin R. and Kokko, Hanna (2009). "The evolution of superstitious and superstition-like behaviour". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276 (1654): 31–7. doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.0981. PMC 2615824. PMID 18782752.
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48. de Silva, Padmal and Rachman, Stanley (2004) Obsessive-compulsive Disorder, Oxford University Press, p. 34, ISBN 0198520824.
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Guy, Josephine M. (2007) The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Oxford University Press, Volume IV, p. 337, ISBN 0191568449.