October 22, 2025 • 11 mins
It's seven years' bad luck for you if you break a mirror, buddy, sorry. But have you ever wondered why? People have come up with all sorts of great reasons since time immemorial.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. Josh, Chuck, Jerry,
not Dave, but still Dave. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Didn't we do a whole episode on mirrors and maybe
talk about breaking mirrors.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
There's no way we didn't talk about that. But this
is definitely an exploded, expanded, really balloony version of that.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, because we're talking about the idea that if you
break a mirror if you are superstitious, A lot of
people would say that brings you seven years of bad luck,
and we're going to dig into why that might be.
People have been superstitious ever since. There have been people
about different things and way before the mirror, and apparently
the Greeks were the first people to sort of just
(00:46):
start talking about a reflection because the story of Narcissus
falls in love with his image in the stream and
drowns and dies. So because of that, the Greeks are like,
maybe seeing yourself isn't such a great thing to do.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
No, And that was Narcissus who had a tattoo, by
the way, that's right, So yeah, it was bad luck
to see your reflection in water, and that was pretty
much the only place you could see your reflection if
you were in ancient Greek, because it wasn't until the
ancient Romans came along and they said, yeah, we basically
believe the same thing, but we're also incredibly vain, so
(01:24):
we're going to invent mirrors. And eventually the mirrors that
they came up with at the beginning were highly polished
metal surfaces. So if you had like an old shield
sitting around, don't throw it away. You can upcycle it
and do a terrific mirror.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, or I guess look at the reflection to see Medusa.
If you're a clash of the Titans, wouldn't that a shield?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
How would you say the name of the person who
looked at their reflection in the water?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh, I've always heard it as Narcissus, But I like
how you said it. I'm not mocking you at all here, Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I didn't think you were. Okay kid, I think I
might be getting that pronunciation from the song from Indigo Girls.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Did they say Narcissus?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, I look at like Narcissus.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'm quite sure that at least one or both of
them studied Greek mythology at Uga at some point.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh maybe so. And by the way, our good friend,
Lucy Waynwright just got off of tour with Indigo Girls.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Oh congratulations, Lucy, that's awesome. I think you told me that.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, she had the road with him for a while,
and her beautiful, little cute daughter was able to go
onto a lot of these shows, which is always fun.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
That's really cool.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, little girl on tour, that's what can be more
fun than that, for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And to keep everybody grounded, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Like Indigo Girls aren't doing all those nasty drugs in
front of that girl.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No. No, they're very well known for trashing hotel rooms too,
and I bet that they did not trash any of
them because Lucy Wainwright Roach's kid.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, not one TV was thrown over a balcony.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Nope, where were we? We were talking about shields as
mirrors were the first mirrors.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
That's right. That led to, you know, the idea that
gods might observe their souls through these shiny reflective devices.
So to you know, that means it has imports. So
to damage something like that, something like that, to be broken,
would at first they thought of it as like just disrespectful,
(03:22):
and then they said, but also maybe it would anger
the gods and they would rain bad luck down upon
their heads.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah. And if you believe that the reflection in the mirror,
your reflection is actually you're seeing your soul. If you
break a mirror, you're breaking your soul too. And so
there's a couple of ways that that can bring about misfortune. Apparently,
one is that your soul couldn't protect your body any longer. Yeah,
that's why all sorts of bad stuff befalls you for
(03:48):
seven years. Then also in some traditions, your soul is
rather upset at having been broken, and now it's looking
for revenge on you, and sometimes it does that in
the form of killing one of your loved ones. Yeah,
that's not what you want. I mean, you're already you
broke your very nice mirror, and now your grandma died.
(04:09):
Come on.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, And the whole seven years thing came about apparently
because the Romans believed that life changes happen in seven
year cycles. So that's where that idea comes from, or
another explanation that I'm not sure about this one, but
apparently mirrors, you know, they were pretty expensive early on,
and the cost of a mirror would equal seven years
(04:32):
work from.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
A servant I like both of those. Yeah they could.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Maybe both are accurate, so.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
As far as the English language goes chuck. The first
time anyone mentions a breaking a mirror being bad luck
was from seventeen seventy seven, where the author mentions that
breaking a mirror is a very unlucky accident because mirrors
were part of an ancient kind of divination formerly used
by magicians and their superstitious and diabolical operations.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
That's right. And because it became a thing in print,
it became a thing in British culture, and uh yeah,
so all of a sudden, people all over the world
are not wanting to break their mirrors anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Okay, So let's take a little break, as it were,
and come back try to put everything together by explaining
what you can do to mitigate your bad luck if
you do break a mirror.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Stuff you should know. Stop you should I should know?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
All right, before we broke, Josh laid down a series
of puns about mirror breakage. Apparently there's some things you
can do if you break your mirror. Apparently one of
the things you can do is you got to get
rid of those pieces. You don't want to leave a
broken mirror lying around. Obviously it's not a great thing
just to have in your house with broken glass, but
I think it has more to do with like, let's
(06:21):
just wash ourselves of this and get it out of
here as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah. So this is based on a how Stuff Works article,
and I love how they actually are serious about telling
you how to throw away a broken mirror. Yeah, you'd like, say,
both of the pieces in the trash, by wrapping them
in paper or placing them in a cardboard box. Yeah,
because sharp mirror pieces can cut through a plastic bag.
That has nothing to do with superstition. That's just good
(06:46):
household advice.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
That's right, good old fashioned house stuff works advice.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Another one this seems this automatically makes it ancient to
me is that you take the mirror pieces and you
bury them. And then what makes it even more ancient
is that you're better off you bury them in the
light of a full moon. Creepy, But it seems to
me you'd have to do a little weighing of cost
benefit of keeping the mirror pieces around until a full mood.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, you know, if you especially if you broke your
mirror on the new moon. Then you're keeping these unlucky
pieces around for a month.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I don't know, man, No, don't know if the full
moon would mitigate that bad luck that you accrued over
the month.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, agreed, I just get rid of it unless you
were pretty close with maybe two days within a full moon.
That's my rule.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I think I would go two days max too.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, all right, I'm glad we agree on that. In
case we ever break a mirror together. You can also
grind that stuff into powder.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
If you want to take it to a party.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, take it to a party, and then the old
throat salt over your shoulder, over your left shoulders is
a great way to get rid of any bad luck
if you believe in that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Works for everything. Yeah, so we're talking mirrors, and mirrors
are made from glass, but glass non mirrored glass. Breaking
it actually is used as good luck sometimes, although it
can also be bad luck to Apparently in England, breaking
a glass as a death omen Yeah, which means people
would be dropping like flies around me because I break
glasses a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, you and Emily both love I break glass yep.
I think the Greeks, though, you know it can be
a celebratory thing, obviously at a Greek celebration to ward
off evil spirits or anyone who's ever been to a
Jewish wedding, stomping on that wine glass is one of
the great traditions.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And then there's other mirror superstitions too, Like the mirror
it's just a superstition factory apparently. Yeah, so there are
traditions where if somebody passes away, you cover the mirrors
in your house with something just to make it so
no one can see the reflection. And there's a few
reasons to do this. One is the person who's died,
their soul is now wandering around until they're buried, and
(08:50):
apparently if they see the reflection in the mirror, they
get sucked into the mirror and stuck there. And you
don't want that to happen to your poor grandma's soul.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
No, or your grandma's mirror, because apparently that would cause
the mirror to tarnish and maybe even turn into an
image of that person who is deceased.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
No imagine, Chuck, if you broke your mirror, Yeah, it
caused your grandma to die. You replaced the mirror, and
your poor grandma saw her soul saw herself in that
new mirror and is trapped in it. That's a lot
of bad luck.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, and baggage, honestly, for sure. You know that's shrink territory.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah. Because also Grandma always just told you you weren't
doing anything right.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, that's right. Other people thought that demons could escape
through the mirror, like go from the non living world
into the living, and so covering a mirror if someone passes, like,
there's a lot of mirror covering happening in these situations.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
For sure. There's also some marriage stuff too. In EDWARDI
and Britain, which took place in the first decade of
the twentieth century, if you wanted to know what your
future husband was going to be like, or if you'd
be married at all, you could sit down in front
of a mirror with some candle light, and if you
saw your husband show up in the mirror, all good.
(10:07):
If a grim specter appeared, oh you would die before
you got married. Yeah, that doesn't necessarily mean that you
die at twenty or something like that. It just means
that you might die an old, unmarried person.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, that's right. But with marriage, it could also be
a good thing, because apparently this superstition, after you get
married and you say I do, if you look into
a mirror and the short time after that, you will
be uniting your soul and it creates apparently an alternate
universe where the two souls can live forever together.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Very sweet.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, what's sweeter?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I don't know, there's not much sweeter. Yeah, So I
guess this Halloween season we would say go out, kiss
your mirror and take very good care of it. Don't
you think that's good advice.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's right, Or just cover that thing up if you
don't want to take your chances.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, And of course obviously that means that the spooky
short stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. Josh, Chuck, Jerry,
not Dave, but still Dave. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Didn't we do a whole episode on mirrors and maybe
talk about breaking mirrors.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
There's no way we didn't talk about that. But this
is definitely an exploded, expanded, really balloony version of that.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, because we're talking about the idea that if you
break a mirror if you are superstitious, A lot of
people would say that brings you seven years of bad luck,
and we're going to dig into why that might be.
People have been superstitious ever since. There have been people
about different things and way before the mirror, and apparently
the Greeks were the first people to sort of just
(00:46):
start talking about a reflection because the story of Narcissus
falls in love with his image in the stream and
drowns and dies. So because of that, the Greeks are like,
maybe seeing yourself isn't such a great thing to do.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
No, And that was Narcissus who had a tattoo, by
the way, that's right, So yeah, it was bad luck
to see your reflection in water, and that was pretty
much the only place you could see your reflection if
you were in ancient Greek, because it wasn't until the
ancient Romans came along and they said, yeah, we basically
believe the same thing, but we're also incredibly vain, so
(01:24):
we're going to invent mirrors. And eventually the mirrors that
they came up with at the beginning were highly polished
metal surfaces. So if you had like an old shield
sitting around, don't throw it away. You can upcycle it
and do a terrific mirror.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, or I guess look at the reflection to see Medusa.
If you're a clash of the Titans, wouldn't that a shield?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
How would you say the name of the person who
looked at their reflection in the water?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh, I've always heard it as Narcissus, But I like
how you said it. I'm not mocking you at all here, Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I didn't think you were. Okay kid, I think I
might be getting that pronunciation from the song from Indigo Girls.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Did they say Narcissus?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, I look at like Narcissus.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'm quite sure that at least one or both of
them studied Greek mythology at Uga at some point.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh maybe so. And by the way, our good friend,
Lucy Waynwright just got off of tour with Indigo Girls.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Oh congratulations, Lucy, that's awesome. I think you told me that.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, she had the road with him for a while,
and her beautiful, little cute daughter was able to go
onto a lot of these shows, which is always fun.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
That's really cool.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, little girl on tour, that's what can be more
fun than that, for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And to keep everybody grounded, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Like Indigo Girls aren't doing all those nasty drugs in
front of that girl.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No. No, they're very well known for trashing hotel rooms too,
and I bet that they did not trash any of
them because Lucy Wainwright Roach's kid.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, not one TV was thrown over a balcony.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Nope, where were we? We were talking about shields as
mirrors were the first mirrors.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
That's right. That led to, you know, the idea that
gods might observe their souls through these shiny reflective devices.
So to you know, that means it has imports. So
to damage something like that, something like that, to be broken,
would at first they thought of it as like just disrespectful,
(03:22):
and then they said, but also maybe it would anger
the gods and they would rain bad luck down upon
their heads.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah. And if you believe that the reflection in the mirror,
your reflection is actually you're seeing your soul. If you
break a mirror, you're breaking your soul too. And so
there's a couple of ways that that can bring about misfortune. Apparently,
one is that your soul couldn't protect your body any longer. Yeah,
that's why all sorts of bad stuff befalls you for
(03:48):
seven years. Then also in some traditions, your soul is
rather upset at having been broken, and now it's looking
for revenge on you, and sometimes it does that in
the form of killing one of your loved ones. Yeah,
that's not what you want. I mean, you're already you
broke your very nice mirror, and now your grandma died.
(04:09):
Come on.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, And the whole seven years thing came about apparently
because the Romans believed that life changes happen in seven
year cycles. So that's where that idea comes from, or
another explanation that I'm not sure about this one, but
apparently mirrors, you know, they were pretty expensive early on,
and the cost of a mirror would equal seven years
(04:32):
work from.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
A servant I like both of those. Yeah they could.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Maybe both are accurate, so.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
As far as the English language goes chuck. The first
time anyone mentions a breaking a mirror being bad luck
was from seventeen seventy seven, where the author mentions that
breaking a mirror is a very unlucky accident because mirrors
were part of an ancient kind of divination formerly used
by magicians and their superstitious and diabolical operations.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
That's right. And because it became a thing in print,
it became a thing in British culture, and uh yeah,
so all of a sudden, people all over the world
are not wanting to break their mirrors anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Okay, So let's take a little break, as it were,
and come back try to put everything together by explaining
what you can do to mitigate your bad luck if
you do break a mirror.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Stuff you should know. Stop you should I should know?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
All right, before we broke, Josh laid down a series
of puns about mirror breakage. Apparently there's some things you
can do if you break your mirror. Apparently one of
the things you can do is you got to get
rid of those pieces. You don't want to leave a
broken mirror lying around. Obviously it's not a great thing
just to have in your house with broken glass, but
I think it has more to do with like, let's
(06:21):
just wash ourselves of this and get it out of
here as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah. So this is based on a how Stuff Works article,
and I love how they actually are serious about telling
you how to throw away a broken mirror. Yeah, you'd like, say,
both of the pieces in the trash, by wrapping them
in paper or placing them in a cardboard box. Yeah,
because sharp mirror pieces can cut through a plastic bag.
That has nothing to do with superstition. That's just good
(06:46):
household advice.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
That's right, good old fashioned house stuff works advice.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Another one this seems this automatically makes it ancient to
me is that you take the mirror pieces and you
bury them. And then what makes it even more ancient
is that you're better off you bury them in the
light of a full moon. Creepy, But it seems to
me you'd have to do a little weighing of cost
benefit of keeping the mirror pieces around until a full mood.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, you know, if you especially if you broke your
mirror on the new moon. Then you're keeping these unlucky
pieces around for a month.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I don't know, man, No, don't know if the full
moon would mitigate that bad luck that you accrued over
the month.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, agreed, I just get rid of it unless you
were pretty close with maybe two days within a full moon.
That's my rule.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I think I would go two days max too.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, all right, I'm glad we agree on that. In
case we ever break a mirror together. You can also
grind that stuff into powder.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
If you want to take it to a party.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, take it to a party, and then the old
throat salt over your shoulder, over your left shoulders is
a great way to get rid of any bad luck
if you believe in that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Works for everything. Yeah, so we're talking mirrors, and mirrors
are made from glass, but glass non mirrored glass. Breaking
it actually is used as good luck sometimes, although it
can also be bad luck to Apparently in England, breaking
a glass as a death omen Yeah, which means people
would be dropping like flies around me because I break
glasses a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, you and Emily both love I break glass yep.
I think the Greeks, though, you know it can be
a celebratory thing, obviously at a Greek celebration to ward
off evil spirits or anyone who's ever been to a
Jewish wedding, stomping on that wine glass is one of
the great traditions.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And then there's other mirror superstitions too, Like the mirror
it's just a superstition factory apparently. Yeah, so there are
traditions where if somebody passes away, you cover the mirrors
in your house with something just to make it so
no one can see the reflection. And there's a few
reasons to do this. One is the person who's died,
their soul is now wandering around until they're buried, and
(08:50):
apparently if they see the reflection in the mirror, they
get sucked into the mirror and stuck there. And you
don't want that to happen to your poor grandma's soul.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
No, or your grandma's mirror, because apparently that would cause
the mirror to tarnish and maybe even turn into an
image of that person who is deceased.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
No imagine, Chuck, if you broke your mirror, Yeah, it
caused your grandma to die. You replaced the mirror, and
your poor grandma saw her soul saw herself in that
new mirror and is trapped in it. That's a lot
of bad luck.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, and baggage, honestly, for sure. You know that's shrink territory.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah. Because also Grandma always just told you you weren't
doing anything right.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, that's right. Other people thought that demons could escape
through the mirror, like go from the non living world
into the living, and so covering a mirror if someone passes, like,
there's a lot of mirror covering happening in these situations.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
For sure. There's also some marriage stuff too. In EDWARDI
and Britain, which took place in the first decade of
the twentieth century, if you wanted to know what your
future husband was going to be like, or if you'd
be married at all, you could sit down in front
of a mirror with some candle light, and if you
saw your husband show up in the mirror, all good.
(10:07):
If a grim specter appeared, oh you would die before
you got married. Yeah, that doesn't necessarily mean that you
die at twenty or something like that. It just means
that you might die an old, unmarried person.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, that's right. But with marriage, it could also be
a good thing, because apparently this superstition, after you get
married and you say I do, if you look into
a mirror and the short time after that, you will
be uniting your soul and it creates apparently an alternate
universe where the two souls can live forever together.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Very sweet.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, what's sweeter?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I don't know, there's not much sweeter. Yeah, So I
guess this Halloween season we would say go out, kiss
your mirror and take very good care of it. Don't
you think that's good advice.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's right, Or just cover that thing up if you
don't want to take your chances.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, And of course obviously that means that the spooky
short stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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