July 22, 2021 • 40 mins
Why exactly do we avoid walking under a ladder? Why is stepping on a crack in the sidewalk such a big deal? What kind of monster carries a rabbit’s foot in their pocket? The answers to these questions and more lie in wait ahead in this episode. Look out!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast Josh here,
Chuck there, not Josh and Clark, which cracks me up
still every time. Uh, this is Josh and Chuck your pals.
You know us, don't you know us? And this is
(00:24):
stuff you should know? Are you superstitious at all? I
feel like we probably talked about this at some point. Yeah,
I was like, have we done a superstition episode? In
the closest one we did is Friday? Am I superstitious?
To answer your question, Chuck, let me just get back
to that right now. Yes, I am in a lot
of dumb ways, but like really childish ways. I'm not
(00:45):
in any way, shape or form genuinely superstitious. But I
knock wood when I say something that like invites the
hubrews of the gods. You know, I feel like I've
seen that out of you a little bit here and there.
Now that you mention it, I, Um, what else do
I do? Oh? I throw salt over my shoulder when
I see ladders. Yeah, I got no problem with laders.
(01:08):
It's just ridiculous. Okay. Yeah, See, I'm not superstitious at all.
And uh, sometimes even bugs Emily that I will um
sort of flout that blatantly by walking under ladders or
not knocking on wood, and she's just like, just do it.
And I'm like, better safe some stupid wood. That's the
(01:29):
superstitious mindsets. Better safe than sorry, I guess so, And
it's fine. I'm not. I'm not gonna yuck someone's young
superstitions or are just sort of silly and fun. But
I I'm a man of science, and I know that
there is no real world connection to knocking on wood.
So I don't do it, but I will do it
to satisfy my wife. Yeah, I think that's very kind
(01:51):
of you. You're you're I don't make fun of her.
I don't go, Okay, well do this dumb thing you
think work right, I'll knock on what I'll say, Okay, sorry,
I think I've said before. You me superstitious of the
numbers four and nine, So I will do things for
her to like I'll try not to let the gas number,
like the dollar amount of the gallon amountain have a
four in it, which is harder than you think to do,
(02:13):
or non she turns forty nine is going to freak out.
She's just gonna be like, well, I'm fifty's going to
go right for sure? That's oh that's an't even better.
I'll pass that one along doors and then skip right
over to fifty when the time comes right, just go beope.
(02:33):
But if you look on some Japanese or Korean or
I think Chinese as well, UM elevators, they don't have
like a number four when there's a fourth floor, they'll
leave it. They'll skip it like thirteen in America. UM.
Or they will just put the letter F right, So
there you go, because I think they're saying, like f
the number four. Yeah, And I've also tried to not
(02:57):
at that one myself. It was okay. I also try
to not be the jerk that says, no, there's still
the thirteenth floor even though it says it's not thirteen. Man,
I feel like we've really evolved and grown up over
the years, you know. I mean this show started when
I was in my thirties and yeah, same here, Yeah,
(03:19):
except early thirties for me, and I'm nowhere near fifty
right now. You get closer than you think, my friend,
So we're gonna talk about that kind of thing. Let's
talk about superstition. So, um, just to kind of start off,
I was digging into what makes us superstitious? And and
there's this article I found all these articles, I just
(03:39):
put together a handful of cute little articles from how
stuff Works, most of them written by Debbie Ranka your
pal um. And the premise of the whole thing is
that humans are superstitious because we have this desire to
control the world. That like, that is a way for
us to to feel like we're just subject to the
(04:01):
whims and vagaries of fate or God or whatever um
that we can we can do things by noticing patterns,
making cause and effect causal connections, and then using them
to our advantage by doing something or not doing something
in a certain situation to affect the outcome. That's a
superstition at its space. Yeah, and you know, superstitions don't
(04:23):
work in one sense because of course, if you're a
baseball player who uh doesn't change their underwear after they
have a big game in the playoffs for the remainder
of the playoffs. Of course, that's not really going to
help you hit better or feel better or pitch better,
but uh, it may if that tricks your mind into
(04:45):
being more relaxed or more confident, you may perform better.
So in a sense, it maybe does work in a
in a weird way. Precisely. Yeah, I saw that in
a number of places that there is this idea that
rituals like superstitions can have a real world effect, but
they have a real world effect on you, the person
who's superstitious, right and they I think it could also.
(05:06):
I didn't see it anywhere, but it's logical to an extent,
and we're just throwing out superstitions here, so I feel
like I can riff. We're riven. But the idea is
there could kind of be a no cebo effect to
that thing too, where if you feel like you violated
some sort of superstitious taboo like walking under a ladder
and not remedy, you might be a little more clumsy
(05:27):
than you would think because you're psyching yourself out, you're
expecting bad luck to happen um, and so you may
actually kind of go face first into bad luck where
otherwise you might not because you haven't been focused on
something bad happening. Or there's a reverse attribution that happens
where you're like you hit your thumb with a hammer
later that day and you're like, see, because I want
(05:47):
into right right? Or or is there an evolutionary basis
in this? You're right? I mean I think it was
in that one article from Debbie where she talked about
like an animal um hunting at night and if there
was a full moon out, they may make a false
(06:08):
association with like a rustling sound in the bushes being
connected to that full moon, being connected with a kill
and eating good for the night, or being killed by
that that large animal. So you run away. Yeah, I guess,
so avoiding that animal that's rustling in the bushes, I
guess that makes more sense. Well, both of them do.
Because you can have a positive reinforcer or a negative
(06:30):
reinforce or reinforcer or a punisher is what they're called,
and it will either make you want to do the
repeat that behavior that you think is magical, or avoid
that behavior that you think is magical. So it could
go either way in that situation, and at its base
the idea that if you hear rustling in the bushes um,
you would probably probably be wise to run, and therefore,
(06:52):
under natural selection, you would be likelier to survive a
lion attack because you didn't stick around to see whether
it was a lion, so you could pass on your
genes so we could select for scarity cats or natural
selection could um. And then that makes sense at its basis.
When you start to add additional things, additional omens or signs,
like that full moon you were talking about, that superstition
(07:13):
really said soon because before it's just like, that's just
a good instinct, that's a survival instinct. Once you add
the full moon being a part of it, then you've
reached superstition and it's probably a little foolish, all right.
Should we dive into some of these yeah, because these
are so great man. Yeah. I mean mainly what this
is is a an origin podcast on the origin of
some of these terms. It's like where Peter Parker came from,
(07:35):
but with superstition, that's right. Some of these customs, like
horse shoes, I do not do it, but I whenever
I see a house or an entry way with a
horseshoe hung above it, I always think that's kind of cool.
I dislike the tradition of it all. I don't think,
I mean, it's a superstition, but I don't judge it
and think it's silly. I think it's kind of a
(07:55):
and I think most of these are kind of just
fun customs that I don't mind either adhering to or
seeing them around me. Right sure, because there is something
to be said. There's something I'm very quaint and charming
about folksiness, earthiness that like a lot of these superstitions
have a horse. It's very much like that. Yeah, and
it does have that kind of charming, charming aspect to it.
(08:18):
I think also one of the things about horse shoes
and being being positive is that it's meant to be
a good luck charm as well. Like, not only does
it supposedly ward off evil, it actually blesses you with
good luck for walking under it. Typically. Yes, so this
one may have its roots in Ireland. Uh. It's a story,
a legend of a blacksmith and the devil. Blacksmith is
(08:38):
working along forging horse shoes. The devil shows up and says,
give me my shoes. I want horse shoes on my
little cloven home. No, no no, no, it's you need to
do is sammy d oh. Hey man, I could use
a little iron down below, if you know what I mean. Uh.
And so the devil appears asked for that. In the
(08:59):
blacksmith recognizes the devil, takes a hot horseshoe and nails
it into the hoofs. The devil gets burned, rips them off,
and says, I'll never go near these horseshoes again. No, no,
what does he say? What does he sound like when
he said, I'm not Me and any other listener listening
right now are not going to stand for that kind
(09:21):
of laziness. Sorry, cat, but I am done Joe with
the horseshoe thing, Thank you, Chuck. And then all of
a sudden that becomes tied to the tradition of hanging
a horseshoe over your door to keep the devil out
or evil spirits. Yeah. So yeah, And anytime you see it,
from what I can tell with superstition, when or folklore,
(09:41):
even when the devil makes an appearance, you can just say, Okay,
the devil is this Christian incarnation of any and all
evil spirits, from fairies to nymphs, to witches to whatever
that predate the traditional Christian idea of the devil. But
it's the same thing. You're being protected from evil by
this thing. And so the horseshoe itself has like a
(10:02):
story as a horseshoe. But the fact that horseshoes have
usually typically been made of iron the whole time people
have been making horseshoes UM in and of itself is
makes it kind of like a good luck charm. And
that people used to attribute um magic to to iron
all over the world, the Arabs, Chinese, the Western Europeans, um,
(10:25):
I think the Chaldeans, which were an ancient I think
they're still around. Catholic Eastern Catholic sect from iraq Um,
a lot of cultures. Uh basically said iron is something special.
So the fact that you could, you would make a
horseshoe out of iron meant that it was automatically a
good luck charm. And then the shape also made it
(10:46):
even luckier because creuscent crescent shapes have been viewed as
having very special magical powers for a very long time.
That's right. And not only that, but the number of
nails seven holes in a horseshoe in the horse's foot,
that is lucky number and many many cultures. And the
way you hang it though is kind of where it
comes into some dispute. Some people say hang it upside
(11:08):
down to hold in your to hold the good luck.
Other people say hang it uh, or did say upside
on it? Right side up? I think you sit upside down,
heels down the little points down. Yeah, heels down would
be dumping good luck on you. Heal's up would be
containing that good luck for those who enter. And I
you know, I've heard people say it both ways, so
I don't I don't know if there is a right way.
(11:30):
The right way is to put two horse shoes, one up,
one down. Here you go that why why discriminate their
horse shoes from sake? Um? And then one other thing.
I think you should take a break. But I wanted
to give a shout out to you know how. I'm
always into contemporary journalism. I found an article in the
Journal of American Folklore by Robert M. Lawrence from that
(11:52):
is just a page turner, So I recommend everybody go read.
It's about horse shoes and superstition, and it's pretty great.
All right, we'll be right back, All right, Chuck, So
(12:26):
we've gone through horseshoes. I feel like the well is dry?
Is this the end of the episode? It's not, my friend,
because I'm I got my pinky wrapped around a wishbone
and I'm just waiting on you to come over. Well,
I wish that this episode could just go on forever,
and we'll be doomed to eternal damnation doing this episode forever. Uh.
(12:47):
The fercula is the wishbone of a foul of a turkey,
at duck or a chicken, and that's where the clavicle
is fused to the stern um right above the stern
hum there, Yeah, fused together, so everyone knows the trick.
You put one pinkie on each side of a wishbone,
you both make a wish, you tear it, and whoever
(13:10):
you know it breaks apart, and whoever you gotta dry
it out first. That's key if you try to do
it fresh out of a turkey, just because it's collagen,
and collagen doesn't break very easily. Yeah, But whoever ends
up with the biggest part of the wishbone, their wish
will come true. And this goes way way back, doesn't it,
Super far back, um, as far back as we've identified
(13:30):
so far, to the Etruscans, who were the rivals of
the ancient Greeks and the predecessors of the ancient romans
Um who lived in Italy, and they engaged in um
animal sacrid kinds of stuff. Yeah, it was probably orgy
every night of the week kind of thing. Um. But
one of the things they did was blood sacrifices of chickens,
(13:50):
and for some reason the wishbone caught their attention. Um.
Chickens and birds in general were believed to be um
oracles or divine. You could tell the future with that
kind of thing, or you could make a wish on them,
And for some reason, the ferculum was identified as this
particularly magically potent part of this already magical animal, the
(14:12):
bird or the chicken. Yeah, so they would they would
stroke this thing, they would make a wish on it.
I think the breaking apart didn't come to a little
bit later. I think that was the Romans because they
didn't have a lot of chickens, which surprised me. I
thought the Romans had a lot of everything. Yeah, are
there any if there's a Roman scholar out there who
(14:34):
who let us know? Does that sound hinky? Is that
makes sense? And if so, why did the Romans not
have chickens? And I think we just came up with
a new super in group T shirt for stuff Romans
colon where the chickens. No, you mean cold, then that's right.
We need a colon jingle jingle, didn't we I don't
think so? Did somebody already? Someone in Oh? No, I
(14:57):
saw an email from a guy saying, we have a
cold and sound I think you're talking about a fart. Oh,
I see. I might have read that wrong though, But anyway,
not as many chickens, not as many wishbones, So people
would break bones in half. And that supposedly is where
the breaking of the wishbone finally comes in, which is then,
of course passed along to Britain, passed on to America
(15:20):
where we had lots of ducks and turkeys and chickens.
And uh, that's kind of the deal. That's why Americans
still do that today. I still do it every now
and then. Sure, yeah, I mean why not. The animal
died for that purpose. Mostly you might as well do
something about it. But there's supposedly the Brits like took
that and really ran with it and added some stuff
(15:41):
to it, like initially in Britain, right, I should say,
during the golden age of wishbone breaking in Great Britain, Um,
you would balance the wishbone on your nose make a
wish and then take it off, let it fall off
and um, and then you would go about breaking it
with somebody. And then after that, if you won the
larger piece, you still had another obstacle to make it pass,
(16:04):
which was you would take each piece, put it in
your fist and make the person choose a fist, and
if they chose the shorter one, finally, you who held
onto this longer one throughout the whole time will get
your wish granted. If not, they could come up and
sneak your wish away, um, just by getting the longer
piece out of your fist at the end there. So
of course the Puritans are like, that seems pretty ungodly.
(16:26):
Let's really let's trim this down and make it more
puritan asking. There you go. Uh. The only do be
as part of this part of the article to me
is it says that's where the term getting your lucky
break comes from. And I'm not quite sure about that. No.
From everything I saw, that came about from playing pool
and billiards starting in the mid nineteenth century, so which
makes way more sense. And then one more thing about
(16:50):
the fercula. It's actually a really ancient bone, um, it
allows wing movement among turkeys and chickens and stuff like that.
But um, they also found them among velociraptors and t
rex as well to allow for arm movement and extension.
So it kind of is one of those things that
directly connects the dinosaurs to modern day birds. Very cool,
(17:13):
I think so too. I wasn't gonna let that one
pass man, no way. So should we get into salt. Yeah,
So throwing salts over your shoulder, that's the thing. You
spill a little to salt, you take a you take
a pinch, pinch, you throw it over that left shoulder.
And this, uh, they say may have come from da
(17:34):
Vinci's painting of the Last Supper. If you look closely,
Judas is scary. It has knocked over the salt, spilled
that salt. Judas was not a good guy. He betrayed
Jesus in the Bible, and so the association of salt
and disloyalty started there. And the idea that the devil
is sitting over your left shoulder in you know, some
(17:55):
Christian beliefs, and you're throwing salt over your shoulder to
blind the devil over that left shoulder. That might be
where that comes from. Yeah, I saw elsewhere. I saw
a few places that it was Da Vinci started that
with that painting. Also saw that he was following on
a much, much older tradition of the idea of spilling
salt being considered unlucky, which makes sense because um people
(18:17):
probably were not actually paid in salt ever at any
point in Western history, and we talked about this in
our currency episode. I hope we busted that one, because
I don't think it's actually true. It's just such a great,
a great um factory, but not necessarily a true one.
But that's not to say that salt was in an
extremely valuable commodity for a very long time. So they
(18:39):
think that there was a taboo that grew around spilling
the salt that turned into a superstition that had kind
of practical origins, which was that's really expensive stuff, don't
don't spill it, or else you're basically letting the devil
take over, and that that made sense for why you
would throw some of that salt over your shoulder, although
it's even more wasteful, But that's what I was getting at.
(18:59):
I just don't get that. Yeah, yes, agreed, I guess
it's just a pinch, but still maybe they came about
after salt became a little more easy to get. Now
it's basically free, like people pay you to take salt. Now, basically,
you try to go out a street corner in New
York and not have somebody to give you salt, you
can't just happens. I think we could probably move on
(19:20):
to the rabbit's foot now, this is my favorite, so
just be prepared. Yeah, this is one where I remember
and you probably do too. Growing up in the seventies
and eighties, I saw a lot of highly dyed and
colored rabbit's foot key chains, and I always thought those
were real rabbits feed, and thankfully have learned that they
(19:41):
are generally synthetic these days. These days, I'm not sure
about the seventies man they may have been. Were they
real rabbits feed? It's entirely possible. I mean, think about
where you're seeing those things, like next to a deaf
leopard mirror, you know, like the people peddling these were
not necessarily the best and brightest society had to offer,
and they probably had a line on rabbits cheaper than
(20:03):
they did on synthetic rabbits. Feet in the seventies, you know, yeah,
that was I don't know if you remember this, but
in the eighties at my school, there was a trend
that happened for a little while where girls would have
these ridiculous key chains with like three keys and like
forty other things on them, including rabbits feet and like feathers,
(20:26):
and remember the Mr. T feathers that you would put
on your ear And it wasn't until you're older that
you realized it was a roach clip and that's why
it hurt so much. Do you remember that? Oh, sure, totally.
But yeah, there was just a big, gaudy key chain
movement in the eighties, and it was always girls who
had all these things on their key chains. And I
feel like all of them always had like a purple
(20:47):
or pink rabbits foot. No, they definitely did, every single
one of them. There wasn't a single girl that didn't
have that, maybe early nineties. And they also had that big,
giant um multi colored pan, yes, you know, the one
that could could write in all sorts of different colors,
and yes, big hair too. For sure. It was the
age of a quinet, that's right. But we're talking about
the rabbit's foot here. And this kind of goes back to, uh,
(21:11):
the idea of of a totem totem is um and
carrying around a lucky charm. And in ancient times, hairs
and rabbits were lucky for a lot of cultures. Yeah. Um.
So one of the reasons why they were considered lucky
because they were a symbol of fertility, which extended not
just like having a bunch of kids, which is something
you really wanted to do in an a grarian society,
(21:34):
because more kids you had, the more help you had
on the farm, the more you could grow and produce
and and um, survive all sorts of terrible misfortune um,
but also fertility in those crops as well. So rabbits
were considered lucky in that respect. But then also rabbits
make their homes underground, so they were also associated with
the underworld too. And there's a lot of spirits that
(21:55):
live in the underworld that you may or may not
want to be in contact with, that's right. And this,
I mean, this seems to have been something that started
in ancient times and probably never stopped all the way
right through today. Like you don't see him around that
much anymore, but it's still a thing. The thing that
cracks me up is it was originally hair's feet, um,
(22:15):
which is the you know, slightly larger version of the rabbit.
But they realized along the way, like, you can't really
tell if it's a hair or rabbit's foot once it's
cut off of the body, So we'll just say they're
both lucky. It's basically the consensus everyone came to in
the superstitious world. Yeah, but I mean, what's the difference.
Really little different size, right speed. That's about it from
(22:37):
what I can tell. But um, one of the places
where it popped up, So the rabbit's foot is we
understand it today, is a lucky charm. Was actually brought
over by people who were enslaved in West Africa and
brought to the America's um and they developed who Do,
which is not to be confused with voodoo. It is
a totally different thing. Who Do was more of African
(22:58):
West African folk magic. And one of the things about
West African folk magic, one of the hallmarks of it
is that things have an opposite, a reverse effect. So
a rabbit's foot was lucky because it was actually a
highly deeply evil thing, and that a rabbit. Typically one
where you saw a rabbit at night in a graveyard
(23:21):
was actually a witch. It was a transfigured witch who
had morphed into the shape of a rabbit. If you
could shoot that rabbit with a silver bullet around midnight
in a graveyard, and you cut off its rear which
was the magical foot, the rare few or most magical
on a rabbit, and the left foot, which was the
sinister associated with witches, that was an extremely potent magic charm.
(23:44):
You basically had the back left leg of a witch
in your pocket. And so because it was such a
potent evil thing, it actually warded off other evils, so
you could carry it around on you to protect you
from real evil. And that's where are kind of idea
of a rabbit's foot in America came about as a
lucky charm. So the luckiest one you could have is
(24:06):
the left rear foot of a rabbit shot in the
cemetery with a silver bullet around midnight. That's precisely correct
as far as American who was concerned. Doesn't get much
more magical than that. I love it. I love it too.
And apparently there's an anecdote where Booker T Washington m
accidentally he was in d c or at a um
at some sort of dignitary dinner, and he and the Austrian,
(24:30):
the Austrian ambassador I think, got their coat switched, and
the Austrian ambassador realized that he had Booker Tase coat
because he or that he didn't have his coat because
he found a rabbit's foot in the pocket. And Booker
T apparently was like, that's that's my Coat's I wish
you hadn't have told people that, Please please put that down. Amazing. Yeah. Um,
(24:51):
all right, so let's take a break and maybe we'll
come back and cover two more wacky superstitions right after this.
All right, Chuck, So I think next we can't avoid
(25:23):
it any longer. We have to talk about walking under
a ladder, which I'm not at all afraid of, but
I do find this one particularly fascinating, in part because
there's a lot of interesting theories, but also there's ways
to undo the problems you created for yourself with further
superstitious behavior. Yeah, and you know we should point out
the regular real world danger walking under a tall ladder. Uh,
(25:48):
if there's a tall ladder up there may be someone
on it. There may be a hammer sitting up there.
There may be a tray of paint. Uh, you know,
walking under a ladder, there could be a real world
consequence that has nothing to do with luck by walking
under a ladder. Right, So, I mean there's it's kind
of like spilling really really expensive salt. Taboos kind of
developed around a very practical thing to not do right,
(26:11):
but that has nothing to do with the superstition. Superstition wise,
they think it might have its roots in religion. If
you believe in the Bible, you believe in the Holy
Trinity of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost or
the Holy Spirit, and that you know, forms a triangle,
and the triangle and the number three can be sacred
in other cultures as well. And so the idea that
(26:34):
you are walking through that triangle, which is the ladder,
means that you are breaking up the Father, of the
Son and the Holy Ghost. You're breaking that that three
way connection. So um, when you when you don't want
to do that, because there's a couple of things. Don't
When you're you're insulting the Christian God, very powerful, potent God.
(26:57):
And then secondly you're also um and summoning the devil,
are inviting the devil in because you've broken that very
sacred bond um that represents the Trinity and Christianity. So um,
that in and of itself is reason enough not to
walk under a ladder? Correct, What are some what are
you blasphemer? What are some other um reasons why you
(27:21):
might not want to walk under a ladder? Superstitious wise though,
I think they use ledders for gallows, or a ladder
against a wall might resemble a gallows. So there was
a theory that if you, you know, walk under a ladder,
it's just reminiscent of walking to your your execution, or
you're basically walking through where the person would be hanging. Two. Yeah,
(27:46):
just creepy, don't even think about. And then supposedly the
Egyptians had a superstition against walking under a ladder, and
that they said that you could conceivably accidentally spy a
god walking up or down the ladder. I could didn't
see this anywhere except repeated everywhere. Um, I didn't see
any scholarship on it, and I'm not entirely certain when
(28:07):
the first ladders were developed. There's like some cave paintings
from I think sixty tho years ago that Neanderthals made
in Europe that looks like a ladder, but it could
also just be a design um and the ladders just
kind of hang out until the nineteenth century in Dayton,
when some guy invented the collapsible ladder. So somewhere in there,
(28:29):
it's possible that the ladder was invented in Egyptians used it.
Some people also point to Jacob's ladder being present in
the Bible, but that could also have just been a
strange translation where it would make sense to somebody living
in a world where ladders have been invented that what
they're describing as a ladder, but they were not necessarily
describing a ladder, you know what I mean. So who knows?
(28:51):
Who knows, But it makes a good story because I'm
guessing the sight of a god going up or down
a ladder viewed from underneath, it's not pleasant. You don't
want to see that jump. Uh. This is one, like
you mentioned earlier, though, that you can undo with further superstition. Um,
there are a few different things if you accidentally, let's say,
(29:11):
walk under a ladder. First of all, that means get
off your phone and look where you're going, because walking
under a ladder is a very specific thing and if
you do it unawares, then that means you should pay
attention more so that aside, if you happen to accidentally
do that. Um, you can make a wish while you're
(29:31):
walking under the ladder, uh, and then walk backwards through
that ladder again and that might undo the bad luck,
right and get that wish coming true. That one's good,
It makes sense. Uh. One of my favorites is so disgusting.
You can spit three times through two of the wrongs,
between two of the wrongs. It's pretty gross. Okay. You
can also make the sign of the fig, which is
(29:54):
if you take your thumb and you put it between
your four finger in your middle finger and let it
yes exactly. That's called the fig sign and actually dating
back to well before, it represented female genitalia back in
the day, and it was considered a very rude thing
(30:15):
to to make it. Somebody probably along the lines of
you know, flipping someone the bird, which is of course
a fallus um that you're putting in their face. But
the form I read this this is really fascinating. If
we have any listeners in Russia who can attest let
us know. But the sign of the fig is apparently
pretty um, pretty uh widespread in Russia, but it's lost.
(30:38):
It's um, it's kind of negative meaning, and apparently it
means really emphatic. No, that's the sign of the fig
or the fig sign. Yet, No, you have to be
like nit I said it before, I'll say it again
the last time. Nit Uh. You can say bread and
(31:02):
butter when you walk into that ladder and you don't
cancel out that bad luck to uh. And there's another
one that was spitting if you spit on your shoe,
but you have to spit on it then not look
at your shoe until the spit has dried. Supposedly my
favorite is the other one the fingers. Yeah, you have
to basically what make a peace sign? Is that correct? No,
(31:26):
just cross your fingers, cross your fingers. I forgot that
that was a different thing than making the peace signs.
Making the pea signs like the opposite of crossing your fingers.
And I think about it. But you cross your fingers
until you see a dog and then you can stop
and the spell has been broken. The bad luck has
been removed because you saw a dog. I love that
one because you know the dogs. I didn't do anything. Now,
(31:49):
I'm just trying to picture you someone flashing you the
pea sign and you're crossing your fingers in return, and
they're like, yeah, man, hope exactly fingers c hope for bees.
So let's see, how about stepping on cracks the last one. Yeah,
So this is when I have a personal association with
And I know I mentioned it at some point on
(32:11):
the show in the past thirteen years, but I have
a thing where I think it's a minor, low level
O C d um. It doesn't manifest itself in a
lot of ways. But ever since I was a kid,
I have no idea why I purposefully step on cracks
when I'm noticing it your toast. When I notice it,
(32:37):
I don't like I think like every time I'm walking, like,
oh I gotta step on cracks. But still to this day,
if I notice like I've stepped on a crack with
my right foot, I will then step on the next
crack with my left foot to balance it out. That's
harder to do than you than it seems at first claims,
isn't it? It is? And it has led to a
little weird stutter steps here and there high life. Ever
(32:59):
since I was a kid. Nobody much knows about it,
but I do know that I've told that story at
some point, and the only thing I can think is
that it might just be a might be slightly on
the O C D spectrum maybe, But one of those
little stutter steps did bring you good luck, because I
remember it was on one of those at situtes that
you were doing it and you fell into the arms
of Eric Estrada. That's good luck in anybody's measure, always, always,
(33:25):
But yeah, Stepping on the crack, though, usually denotes bad luck.
Step on a crack, break your mother's back, step on
a line, break your father's spine. Do you know that
second one? I had heard of it, but it's certainly
not ubiquitous like your mother's back. Devo left that one out.
That's right. That wasn't a Divo song, wouldn't it was
in whip it? Right, it would be good. Remember remember
(33:48):
the Simpsons Variety Show episode where Whalen Smithers was doing
a version of whipp It but with licorice. I say,
whipp it licorice whip Oh yeah, I'm sorry. I forgot
you have covid. I gotta hilarity. Oh that's good. Um.
(34:10):
So the idea that this is bad luck it could
come from um again, from the old days where cracks
signified a gap in the boundary between Earth and the
metaphysical and if you're interacting with this chasm, even if
it's just a crack in the in the ground, then
that could bring misfortune to you in your families. Makes sense.
(34:32):
A lot of people were scared of things in the
ground or even like cravass in a wall or something
who knows what it was hiding, which you could also
kind of see stemming from those you know, hunter gatherer
days where it's like, yeah, you don't want to put
your finger in there because something really bad can happen.
And you know, the black widow could could sting you
something like that or bite you, and um, that's a
(34:53):
good way to kind of pass that along without having
to explain black widows and venom in that kind of thing.
Just there's evil spirits that drell dwelling cracks. I don't
mess with them. Yeah, I never really thought about that.
You don't go stick in your hand in a crack, No,
you'd have to be a dinghis Sorry sorry, Chuck, No, no, no,
I'm good. I'm good. That wasn't a good fall. So, um,
(35:17):
you actually do kind of fall in line with another
version of the superstition where people say that stepping on
a crack is actually a positive thing because you break
the devil's back. So you're actually breaking the devil's back,
Chuck when you do that, And basically that's where that
came from early religious days. It's possible I could actually
see that and you just forgot all about it. Well,
(35:38):
it's still a thing though, like grown adults like myself
still do it. And there was a pole supposedly in
England where three thousand people uh they pulled and said
that one in twenty would not step on cracks. Still
is grown ups because they thought it could lead to
bad luck. Yeah, and I mean there's all sorts of
other superstitions people have, like um uh, well like what chuck, uh, Emily,
(36:04):
when she passes a car with a headlight out, we'll
kiss her hand and hit the scene that. Yeah, And
I don't know if that's good luck or not or
just a sort of a game. There's supposedly, um, you
are supposed to lift your feet over a bridge. I've
seen that one. Um. Yeah, there's just a lot of
like weird, little modern superstitions that that we might never
(36:25):
know the origins of you're knocking. Yeah, which is a
good one, but we're not going to talk about that one.
Do you know the origin? Yeah? Yeah, the Celts, as
far as we know, the Celts and other cultures felt
like trees were very enchanted places, filled with all sorts
of spirits, and they would actually sacrifice humans to the trees,
(36:47):
which made them even more mystical and magical. Um. And
so when you were knocking on wood, you were basically
asking those spirits for luck or a favor, help or
something like that. And then when you knocked twice, the
second knock was meant to say thank you very much
for that help. Look at there. Yeah, and then that
appeared to be on the fly. But the secret is
(37:08):
you research that and I didn't have a chance to.
Hey man, that's okay. As long as we got it
in there, I think people would have been been like, what,
how did you not talk about that you talked about
at the beginning, you didn't follow up with it, So
we did And I feel good, Um, you feel good. Well,
then I think the superstition episode has come through a
conclusion chuck. So if you want to know more about superstitions,
(37:29):
type that word in the search bar. Good old house
stuff works and it will bring up a bunch of
good little articles about those and others we haven't talked about.
And since I said search bar, it's time for a
listener mail. Yeah. This one is from Poison Control And
this was kind of cool. We did a show on
poison control centers and we heard from poison control centers.
(37:51):
I always love it when they happened. Yeah. Same here
corrections when experts right in. Oh sure, yeah, and and
this is a correction and we're happy to issue it.
But um, they were very kind and they really love
the fact that we did a show kind of highlighting
the work they do. Uh. And they're always a little
more official, dought than like regular fanmail. And this one
(38:11):
starts out, Hello Mr Bryant to Mr Clark. We don't
know who. I hope this email finds you both. Well.
I'm a big fan of stuff you should know and
I work at the headquarters the American Association of Poison
Control Centers. We would like to express our sinceres Gratitude
for showcasing poison control centers in a recent episode of
your podcast Stuff You Should Know. Towards the end of
(38:34):
said episode, at fifty uh, you mentioned the National Poison
Helpline phone number two two two one to two two,
followed by U r L. That is not accurate. The
accurate web page triage tool for the a p c
C is poison help dot org. And I think we
said poison dot org. We need to go back and
(38:56):
fix that. And I want to accidentally spend somebody to
the wrong place. Yeah, we should probably actually do that.
The two sites have similar to you r ls, so
we completely understand. But the correct address again is www
dot poison help dot org. Thank you again for dedicating
an episode to poison control centers. Let us know if
you have any questions with gratitude this one. We got
(39:17):
a few of them. But this is from Davis Ladley
and operations associate there. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you very much, Davis.
That was a great correction and we will go do
something about it. So everybody can go here, some one
of us go poison help dot or Mr Herman right
look out for it in the counting days or weeks. Yeah, sorry,
(39:38):
we screwed up with the one U r L that
we needed to get right, right, right, because I don't
think we mentioned any others in the whole episode. Nope. Well,
if you want to get in touch with Chuck and
I like, UM, Davis did um great name by the way,
I was admired that named Davis. I thought it was
a cool first name. Yeah me too. Um. You can
send us an email to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
(40:02):
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast Josh here,
Chuck there, not Josh and Clark, which cracks me up
still every time. Uh, this is Josh and Chuck your pals.
You know us, don't you know us? And this is
(00:24):
stuff you should know? Are you superstitious at all? I
feel like we probably talked about this at some point. Yeah,
I was like, have we done a superstition episode? In
the closest one we did is Friday? Am I superstitious?
To answer your question, Chuck, let me just get back
to that right now. Yes, I am in a lot
of dumb ways, but like really childish ways. I'm not
(00:45):
in any way, shape or form genuinely superstitious. But I
knock wood when I say something that like invites the
hubrews of the gods. You know, I feel like I've
seen that out of you a little bit here and there.
Now that you mention it, I, Um, what else do
I do? Oh? I throw salt over my shoulder when
I see ladders. Yeah, I got no problem with laders.
(01:08):
It's just ridiculous. Okay. Yeah, See, I'm not superstitious at all.
And uh, sometimes even bugs Emily that I will um
sort of flout that blatantly by walking under ladders or
not knocking on wood, and she's just like, just do it.
And I'm like, better safe some stupid wood. That's the
(01:29):
superstitious mindsets. Better safe than sorry, I guess so, And
it's fine. I'm not. I'm not gonna yuck someone's young
superstitions or are just sort of silly and fun. But
I I'm a man of science, and I know that
there is no real world connection to knocking on wood.
So I don't do it, but I will do it
to satisfy my wife. Yeah, I think that's very kind
(01:51):
of you. You're you're I don't make fun of her.
I don't go, Okay, well do this dumb thing you
think work right, I'll knock on what I'll say, Okay, sorry,
I think I've said before. You me superstitious of the
numbers four and nine, So I will do things for
her to like I'll try not to let the gas number,
like the dollar amount of the gallon amountain have a
four in it, which is harder than you think to do,
(02:13):
or non she turns forty nine is going to freak out.
She's just gonna be like, well, I'm fifty's going to
go right for sure? That's oh that's an't even better.
I'll pass that one along doors and then skip right
over to fifty when the time comes right, just go beope.
(02:33):
But if you look on some Japanese or Korean or
I think Chinese as well, UM elevators, they don't have
like a number four when there's a fourth floor, they'll
leave it. They'll skip it like thirteen in America. UM.
Or they will just put the letter F right, So
there you go, because I think they're saying, like f
the number four. Yeah, And I've also tried to not
(02:57):
at that one myself. It was okay. I also try
to not be the jerk that says, no, there's still
the thirteenth floor even though it says it's not thirteen. Man,
I feel like we've really evolved and grown up over
the years, you know. I mean this show started when
I was in my thirties and yeah, same here, Yeah,
(03:19):
except early thirties for me, and I'm nowhere near fifty
right now. You get closer than you think, my friend,
So we're gonna talk about that kind of thing. Let's
talk about superstition. So, um, just to kind of start off,
I was digging into what makes us superstitious? And and
there's this article I found all these articles, I just
(03:39):
put together a handful of cute little articles from how
stuff Works, most of them written by Debbie Ranka your
pal um. And the premise of the whole thing is
that humans are superstitious because we have this desire to
control the world. That like, that is a way for
us to to feel like we're just subject to the
(04:01):
whims and vagaries of fate or God or whatever um
that we can we can do things by noticing patterns,
making cause and effect causal connections, and then using them
to our advantage by doing something or not doing something
in a certain situation to affect the outcome. That's a
superstition at its space. Yeah, and you know, superstitions don't
(04:23):
work in one sense because of course, if you're a
baseball player who uh doesn't change their underwear after they
have a big game in the playoffs for the remainder
of the playoffs. Of course, that's not really going to
help you hit better or feel better or pitch better,
but uh, it may if that tricks your mind into
(04:45):
being more relaxed or more confident, you may perform better.
So in a sense, it maybe does work in a
in a weird way. Precisely. Yeah, I saw that in
a number of places that there is this idea that
rituals like superstitions can have a real world effect, but
they have a real world effect on you, the person
who's superstitious, right and they I think it could also.
(05:06):
I didn't see it anywhere, but it's logical to an extent,
and we're just throwing out superstitions here, so I feel
like I can riff. We're riven. But the idea is
there could kind of be a no cebo effect to
that thing too, where if you feel like you violated
some sort of superstitious taboo like walking under a ladder
and not remedy, you might be a little more clumsy
(05:27):
than you would think because you're psyching yourself out, you're
expecting bad luck to happen um, and so you may
actually kind of go face first into bad luck where
otherwise you might not because you haven't been focused on
something bad happening. Or there's a reverse attribution that happens
where you're like you hit your thumb with a hammer
later that day and you're like, see, because I want
(05:47):
into right right? Or or is there an evolutionary basis
in this? You're right? I mean I think it was
in that one article from Debbie where she talked about
like an animal um hunting at night and if there
was a full moon out, they may make a false
(06:08):
association with like a rustling sound in the bushes being
connected to that full moon, being connected with a kill
and eating good for the night, or being killed by
that that large animal. So you run away. Yeah, I guess,
so avoiding that animal that's rustling in the bushes, I
guess that makes more sense. Well, both of them do.
Because you can have a positive reinforcer or a negative
(06:30):
reinforce or reinforcer or a punisher is what they're called,
and it will either make you want to do the
repeat that behavior that you think is magical, or avoid
that behavior that you think is magical. So it could
go either way in that situation, and at its base
the idea that if you hear rustling in the bushes um,
you would probably probably be wise to run, and therefore,
(06:52):
under natural selection, you would be likelier to survive a
lion attack because you didn't stick around to see whether
it was a lion, so you could pass on your
genes so we could select for scarity cats or natural
selection could um. And then that makes sense at its basis.
When you start to add additional things, additional omens or signs,
like that full moon you were talking about, that superstition
(07:13):
really said soon because before it's just like, that's just
a good instinct, that's a survival instinct. Once you add
the full moon being a part of it, then you've
reached superstition and it's probably a little foolish, all right.
Should we dive into some of these yeah, because these
are so great man. Yeah. I mean mainly what this
is is a an origin podcast on the origin of
some of these terms. It's like where Peter Parker came from,
(07:35):
but with superstition, that's right. Some of these customs, like
horse shoes, I do not do it, but I whenever
I see a house or an entry way with a
horseshoe hung above it, I always think that's kind of cool.
I dislike the tradition of it all. I don't think,
I mean, it's a superstition, but I don't judge it
and think it's silly. I think it's kind of a
(07:55):
and I think most of these are kind of just
fun customs that I don't mind either adhering to or
seeing them around me. Right sure, because there is something
to be said. There's something I'm very quaint and charming
about folksiness, earthiness that like a lot of these superstitions
have a horse. It's very much like that. Yeah, and
it does have that kind of charming, charming aspect to it.
(08:18):
I think also one of the things about horse shoes
and being being positive is that it's meant to be
a good luck charm as well. Like, not only does
it supposedly ward off evil, it actually blesses you with
good luck for walking under it. Typically. Yes, so this
one may have its roots in Ireland. Uh. It's a story,
a legend of a blacksmith and the devil. Blacksmith is
(08:38):
working along forging horse shoes. The devil shows up and says,
give me my shoes. I want horse shoes on my
little cloven home. No, no no, no, it's you need to
do is sammy d oh. Hey man, I could use
a little iron down below, if you know what I mean. Uh.
And so the devil appears asked for that. In the
(08:59):
blacksmith recognizes the devil, takes a hot horseshoe and nails
it into the hoofs. The devil gets burned, rips them off,
and says, I'll never go near these horseshoes again. No, no,
what does he say? What does he sound like when
he said, I'm not Me and any other listener listening
right now are not going to stand for that kind
(09:21):
of laziness. Sorry, cat, but I am done Joe with
the horseshoe thing, Thank you, Chuck. And then all of
a sudden that becomes tied to the tradition of hanging
a horseshoe over your door to keep the devil out
or evil spirits. Yeah. So yeah, And anytime you see it,
from what I can tell with superstition, when or folklore,
(09:41):
even when the devil makes an appearance, you can just say, Okay,
the devil is this Christian incarnation of any and all
evil spirits, from fairies to nymphs, to witches to whatever
that predate the traditional Christian idea of the devil. But
it's the same thing. You're being protected from evil by
this thing. And so the horseshoe itself has like a
(10:02):
story as a horseshoe. But the fact that horseshoes have
usually typically been made of iron the whole time people
have been making horseshoes UM in and of itself is
makes it kind of like a good luck charm. And
that people used to attribute um magic to to iron
all over the world, the Arabs, Chinese, the Western Europeans, um,
(10:25):
I think the Chaldeans, which were an ancient I think
they're still around. Catholic Eastern Catholic sect from iraq Um,
a lot of cultures. Uh basically said iron is something special.
So the fact that you could, you would make a
horseshoe out of iron meant that it was automatically a
good luck charm. And then the shape also made it
(10:46):
even luckier because creuscent crescent shapes have been viewed as
having very special magical powers for a very long time.
That's right. And not only that, but the number of
nails seven holes in a horseshoe in the horse's foot,
that is lucky number and many many cultures. And the
way you hang it though is kind of where it
comes into some dispute. Some people say hang it upside
(11:08):
down to hold in your to hold the good luck.
Other people say hang it uh, or did say upside
on it? Right side up? I think you sit upside down,
heels down the little points down. Yeah, heels down would
be dumping good luck on you. Heal's up would be
containing that good luck for those who enter. And I
you know, I've heard people say it both ways, so
I don't I don't know if there is a right way.
(11:30):
The right way is to put two horse shoes, one up,
one down. Here you go that why why discriminate their
horse shoes from sake? Um? And then one other thing.
I think you should take a break. But I wanted
to give a shout out to you know how. I'm
always into contemporary journalism. I found an article in the
Journal of American Folklore by Robert M. Lawrence from that
(11:52):
is just a page turner, So I recommend everybody go read.
It's about horse shoes and superstition, and it's pretty great.
All right, we'll be right back, All right, Chuck, So
(12:26):
we've gone through horseshoes. I feel like the well is dry?
Is this the end of the episode? It's not, my friend,
because I'm I got my pinky wrapped around a wishbone
and I'm just waiting on you to come over. Well,
I wish that this episode could just go on forever,
and we'll be doomed to eternal damnation doing this episode forever. Uh.
(12:47):
The fercula is the wishbone of a foul of a turkey,
at duck or a chicken, and that's where the clavicle
is fused to the stern um right above the stern
hum there, Yeah, fused together, so everyone knows the trick.
You put one pinkie on each side of a wishbone,
you both make a wish, you tear it, and whoever
(13:10):
you know it breaks apart, and whoever you gotta dry
it out first. That's key if you try to do
it fresh out of a turkey, just because it's collagen,
and collagen doesn't break very easily. Yeah, But whoever ends
up with the biggest part of the wishbone, their wish
will come true. And this goes way way back, doesn't it,
Super far back, um, as far back as we've identified
(13:30):
so far, to the Etruscans, who were the rivals of
the ancient Greeks and the predecessors of the ancient romans
Um who lived in Italy, and they engaged in um
animal sacrid kinds of stuff. Yeah, it was probably orgy
every night of the week kind of thing. Um. But
one of the things they did was blood sacrifices of chickens,
(13:50):
and for some reason the wishbone caught their attention. Um.
Chickens and birds in general were believed to be um
oracles or divine. You could tell the future with that
kind of thing, or you could make a wish on them,
And for some reason, the ferculum was identified as this
particularly magically potent part of this already magical animal, the
(14:12):
bird or the chicken. Yeah, so they would they would
stroke this thing, they would make a wish on it.
I think the breaking apart didn't come to a little
bit later. I think that was the Romans because they
didn't have a lot of chickens, which surprised me. I
thought the Romans had a lot of everything. Yeah, are
there any if there's a Roman scholar out there who
(14:34):
who let us know? Does that sound hinky? Is that
makes sense? And if so, why did the Romans not
have chickens? And I think we just came up with
a new super in group T shirt for stuff Romans
colon where the chickens. No, you mean cold, then that's right.
We need a colon jingle jingle, didn't we I don't
think so? Did somebody already? Someone in Oh? No, I
(14:57):
saw an email from a guy saying, we have a
cold and sound I think you're talking about a fart. Oh,
I see. I might have read that wrong though, But anyway,
not as many chickens, not as many wishbones, So people
would break bones in half. And that supposedly is where
the breaking of the wishbone finally comes in, which is then,
of course passed along to Britain, passed on to America
(15:20):
where we had lots of ducks and turkeys and chickens.
And uh, that's kind of the deal. That's why Americans
still do that today. I still do it every now
and then. Sure, yeah, I mean why not. The animal
died for that purpose. Mostly you might as well do
something about it. But there's supposedly the Brits like took
that and really ran with it and added some stuff
(15:41):
to it, like initially in Britain, right, I should say,
during the golden age of wishbone breaking in Great Britain, Um,
you would balance the wishbone on your nose make a
wish and then take it off, let it fall off
and um, and then you would go about breaking it
with somebody. And then after that, if you won the
larger piece, you still had another obstacle to make it pass,
(16:04):
which was you would take each piece, put it in
your fist and make the person choose a fist, and
if they chose the shorter one, finally, you who held
onto this longer one throughout the whole time will get
your wish granted. If not, they could come up and
sneak your wish away, um, just by getting the longer
piece out of your fist at the end there. So
of course the Puritans are like, that seems pretty ungodly.
(16:26):
Let's really let's trim this down and make it more
puritan asking. There you go. Uh. The only do be
as part of this part of the article to me
is it says that's where the term getting your lucky
break comes from. And I'm not quite sure about that. No.
From everything I saw, that came about from playing pool
and billiards starting in the mid nineteenth century, so which
makes way more sense. And then one more thing about
(16:50):
the fercula. It's actually a really ancient bone, um, it
allows wing movement among turkeys and chickens and stuff like that.
But um, they also found them among velociraptors and t
rex as well to allow for arm movement and extension.
So it kind of is one of those things that
directly connects the dinosaurs to modern day birds. Very cool,
(17:13):
I think so too. I wasn't gonna let that one
pass man, no way. So should we get into salt. Yeah,
So throwing salts over your shoulder, that's the thing. You
spill a little to salt, you take a you take
a pinch, pinch, you throw it over that left shoulder.
And this, uh, they say may have come from da
(17:34):
Vinci's painting of the Last Supper. If you look closely,
Judas is scary. It has knocked over the salt, spilled
that salt. Judas was not a good guy. He betrayed
Jesus in the Bible, and so the association of salt
and disloyalty started there. And the idea that the devil
is sitting over your left shoulder in you know, some
(17:55):
Christian beliefs, and you're throwing salt over your shoulder to
blind the devil over that left shoulder. That might be
where that comes from. Yeah, I saw elsewhere. I saw
a few places that it was Da Vinci started that
with that painting. Also saw that he was following on
a much, much older tradition of the idea of spilling
salt being considered unlucky, which makes sense because um people
(18:17):
probably were not actually paid in salt ever at any
point in Western history, and we talked about this in
our currency episode. I hope we busted that one, because
I don't think it's actually true. It's just such a great,
a great um factory, but not necessarily a true one.
But that's not to say that salt was in an
extremely valuable commodity for a very long time. So they
(18:39):
think that there was a taboo that grew around spilling
the salt that turned into a superstition that had kind
of practical origins, which was that's really expensive stuff, don't
don't spill it, or else you're basically letting the devil
take over, and that that made sense for why you
would throw some of that salt over your shoulder, although
it's even more wasteful, But that's what I was getting at.
(18:59):
I just don't get that. Yeah, yes, agreed, I guess
it's just a pinch, but still maybe they came about
after salt became a little more easy to get. Now
it's basically free, like people pay you to take salt. Now, basically,
you try to go out a street corner in New
York and not have somebody to give you salt, you
can't just happens. I think we could probably move on
(19:20):
to the rabbit's foot now, this is my favorite, so
just be prepared. Yeah, this is one where I remember
and you probably do too. Growing up in the seventies
and eighties, I saw a lot of highly dyed and
colored rabbit's foot key chains, and I always thought those
were real rabbits feed, and thankfully have learned that they
(19:41):
are generally synthetic these days. These days, I'm not sure
about the seventies man they may have been. Were they
real rabbits feed? It's entirely possible. I mean, think about
where you're seeing those things, like next to a deaf
leopard mirror, you know, like the people peddling these were
not necessarily the best and brightest society had to offer,
and they probably had a line on rabbits cheaper than
(20:03):
they did on synthetic rabbits. Feet in the seventies, you know, yeah,
that was I don't know if you remember this, but
in the eighties at my school, there was a trend
that happened for a little while where girls would have
these ridiculous key chains with like three keys and like
forty other things on them, including rabbits feet and like feathers,
(20:26):
and remember the Mr. T feathers that you would put
on your ear And it wasn't until you're older that
you realized it was a roach clip and that's why
it hurt so much. Do you remember that? Oh, sure, totally.
But yeah, there was just a big, gaudy key chain
movement in the eighties, and it was always girls who
had all these things on their key chains. And I
feel like all of them always had like a purple
(20:47):
or pink rabbits foot. No, they definitely did, every single
one of them. There wasn't a single girl that didn't
have that, maybe early nineties. And they also had that big,
giant um multi colored pan, yes, you know, the one
that could could write in all sorts of different colors,
and yes, big hair too. For sure. It was the
age of a quinet, that's right. But we're talking about
the rabbit's foot here. And this kind of goes back to, uh,
(21:11):
the idea of of a totem totem is um and
carrying around a lucky charm. And in ancient times, hairs
and rabbits were lucky for a lot of cultures. Yeah. Um.
So one of the reasons why they were considered lucky
because they were a symbol of fertility, which extended not
just like having a bunch of kids, which is something
you really wanted to do in an a grarian society,
(21:34):
because more kids you had, the more help you had
on the farm, the more you could grow and produce
and and um, survive all sorts of terrible misfortune um,
but also fertility in those crops as well. So rabbits
were considered lucky in that respect. But then also rabbits
make their homes underground, so they were also associated with
the underworld too. And there's a lot of spirits that
(21:55):
live in the underworld that you may or may not
want to be in contact with, that's right. And this,
I mean, this seems to have been something that started
in ancient times and probably never stopped all the way
right through today. Like you don't see him around that
much anymore, but it's still a thing. The thing that
cracks me up is it was originally hair's feet, um,
(22:15):
which is the you know, slightly larger version of the rabbit.
But they realized along the way, like, you can't really
tell if it's a hair or rabbit's foot once it's
cut off of the body, So we'll just say they're
both lucky. It's basically the consensus everyone came to in
the superstitious world. Yeah, but I mean, what's the difference.
Really little different size, right speed. That's about it from
(22:37):
what I can tell. But um, one of the places
where it popped up, So the rabbit's foot is we
understand it today, is a lucky charm. Was actually brought
over by people who were enslaved in West Africa and
brought to the America's um and they developed who Do,
which is not to be confused with voodoo. It is
a totally different thing. Who Do was more of African
(22:58):
West African folk magic. And one of the things about
West African folk magic, one of the hallmarks of it
is that things have an opposite, a reverse effect. So
a rabbit's foot was lucky because it was actually a
highly deeply evil thing, and that a rabbit. Typically one
where you saw a rabbit at night in a graveyard
(23:21):
was actually a witch. It was a transfigured witch who
had morphed into the shape of a rabbit. If you
could shoot that rabbit with a silver bullet around midnight
in a graveyard, and you cut off its rear which
was the magical foot, the rare few or most magical
on a rabbit, and the left foot, which was the
sinister associated with witches, that was an extremely potent magic charm.
(23:44):
You basically had the back left leg of a witch
in your pocket. And so because it was such a
potent evil thing, it actually warded off other evils, so
you could carry it around on you to protect you
from real evil. And that's where are kind of idea
of a rabbit's foot in America came about as a
lucky charm. So the luckiest one you could have is
(24:06):
the left rear foot of a rabbit shot in the
cemetery with a silver bullet around midnight. That's precisely correct
as far as American who was concerned. Doesn't get much
more magical than that. I love it. I love it too.
And apparently there's an anecdote where Booker T Washington m
accidentally he was in d c or at a um
at some sort of dignitary dinner, and he and the Austrian,
(24:30):
the Austrian ambassador I think, got their coat switched, and
the Austrian ambassador realized that he had Booker Tase coat
because he or that he didn't have his coat because
he found a rabbit's foot in the pocket. And Booker
T apparently was like, that's that's my Coat's I wish
you hadn't have told people that, Please please put that down. Amazing. Yeah. Um,
(24:51):
all right, so let's take a break and maybe we'll
come back and cover two more wacky superstitions right after this.
All right, Chuck, So I think next we can't avoid
(25:23):
it any longer. We have to talk about walking under
a ladder, which I'm not at all afraid of, but
I do find this one particularly fascinating, in part because
there's a lot of interesting theories, but also there's ways
to undo the problems you created for yourself with further
superstitious behavior. Yeah, and you know we should point out
the regular real world danger walking under a tall ladder. Uh,
(25:48):
if there's a tall ladder up there may be someone
on it. There may be a hammer sitting up there.
There may be a tray of paint. Uh, you know,
walking under a ladder, there could be a real world
consequence that has nothing to do with luck by walking
under a ladder. Right, So, I mean there's it's kind
of like spilling really really expensive salt. Taboos kind of
developed around a very practical thing to not do right,
(26:11):
but that has nothing to do with the superstition. Superstition wise,
they think it might have its roots in religion. If
you believe in the Bible, you believe in the Holy
Trinity of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost or
the Holy Spirit, and that you know, forms a triangle,
and the triangle and the number three can be sacred
in other cultures as well. And so the idea that
(26:34):
you are walking through that triangle, which is the ladder,
means that you are breaking up the Father, of the
Son and the Holy Ghost. You're breaking that that three
way connection. So um, when you when you don't want
to do that, because there's a couple of things. Don't
When you're you're insulting the Christian God, very powerful, potent God.
(26:57):
And then secondly you're also um and summoning the devil,
are inviting the devil in because you've broken that very
sacred bond um that represents the Trinity and Christianity. So um,
that in and of itself is reason enough not to
walk under a ladder? Correct, What are some what are
you blasphemer? What are some other um reasons why you
(27:21):
might not want to walk under a ladder? Superstitious wise though,
I think they use ledders for gallows, or a ladder
against a wall might resemble a gallows. So there was
a theory that if you, you know, walk under a ladder,
it's just reminiscent of walking to your your execution, or
you're basically walking through where the person would be hanging. Two. Yeah,
(27:46):
just creepy, don't even think about. And then supposedly the
Egyptians had a superstition against walking under a ladder, and
that they said that you could conceivably accidentally spy a
god walking up or down the ladder. I could didn't
see this anywhere except repeated everywhere. Um, I didn't see
any scholarship on it, and I'm not entirely certain when
(28:07):
the first ladders were developed. There's like some cave paintings
from I think sixty tho years ago that Neanderthals made
in Europe that looks like a ladder, but it could
also just be a design um and the ladders just
kind of hang out until the nineteenth century in Dayton,
when some guy invented the collapsible ladder. So somewhere in there,
(28:29):
it's possible that the ladder was invented in Egyptians used it.
Some people also point to Jacob's ladder being present in
the Bible, but that could also have just been a
strange translation where it would make sense to somebody living
in a world where ladders have been invented that what
they're describing as a ladder, but they were not necessarily
describing a ladder, you know what I mean. So who knows?
(28:51):
Who knows, But it makes a good story because I'm
guessing the sight of a god going up or down
a ladder viewed from underneath, it's not pleasant. You don't
want to see that jump. Uh. This is one, like
you mentioned earlier, though, that you can undo with further superstition. Um,
there are a few different things if you accidentally, let's say,
(29:11):
walk under a ladder. First of all, that means get
off your phone and look where you're going, because walking
under a ladder is a very specific thing and if
you do it unawares, then that means you should pay
attention more so that aside, if you happen to accidentally
do that. Um, you can make a wish while you're
(29:31):
walking under the ladder, uh, and then walk backwards through
that ladder again and that might undo the bad luck,
right and get that wish coming true. That one's good,
It makes sense. Uh. One of my favorites is so disgusting.
You can spit three times through two of the wrongs,
between two of the wrongs. It's pretty gross. Okay. You
can also make the sign of the fig, which is
(29:54):
if you take your thumb and you put it between
your four finger in your middle finger and let it
yes exactly. That's called the fig sign and actually dating
back to well before, it represented female genitalia back in
the day, and it was considered a very rude thing
(30:15):
to to make it. Somebody probably along the lines of
you know, flipping someone the bird, which is of course
a fallus um that you're putting in their face. But
the form I read this this is really fascinating. If
we have any listeners in Russia who can attest let
us know. But the sign of the fig is apparently
pretty um, pretty uh widespread in Russia, but it's lost.
(30:38):
It's um, it's kind of negative meaning, and apparently it
means really emphatic. No, that's the sign of the fig
or the fig sign. Yet, No, you have to be
like nit I said it before, I'll say it again
the last time. Nit Uh. You can say bread and
(31:02):
butter when you walk into that ladder and you don't
cancel out that bad luck to uh. And there's another
one that was spitting if you spit on your shoe,
but you have to spit on it then not look
at your shoe until the spit has dried. Supposedly my
favorite is the other one the fingers. Yeah, you have
to basically what make a peace sign? Is that correct? No,
(31:26):
just cross your fingers, cross your fingers. I forgot that
that was a different thing than making the peace signs.
Making the pea signs like the opposite of crossing your fingers.
And I think about it. But you cross your fingers
until you see a dog and then you can stop
and the spell has been broken. The bad luck has
been removed because you saw a dog. I love that
one because you know the dogs. I didn't do anything. Now,
(31:49):
I'm just trying to picture you someone flashing you the
pea sign and you're crossing your fingers in return, and
they're like, yeah, man, hope exactly fingers c hope for bees.
So let's see, how about stepping on cracks the last one. Yeah,
So this is when I have a personal association with
And I know I mentioned it at some point on
(32:11):
the show in the past thirteen years, but I have
a thing where I think it's a minor, low level
O C d um. It doesn't manifest itself in a
lot of ways. But ever since I was a kid,
I have no idea why I purposefully step on cracks
when I'm noticing it your toast. When I notice it,
(32:37):
I don't like I think like every time I'm walking, like,
oh I gotta step on cracks. But still to this day,
if I notice like I've stepped on a crack with
my right foot, I will then step on the next
crack with my left foot to balance it out. That's
harder to do than you than it seems at first claims,
isn't it? It is? And it has led to a
little weird stutter steps here and there high life. Ever
(32:59):
since I was a kid. Nobody much knows about it,
but I do know that I've told that story at
some point, and the only thing I can think is
that it might just be a might be slightly on
the O C D spectrum maybe, But one of those
little stutter steps did bring you good luck, because I
remember it was on one of those at situtes that
you were doing it and you fell into the arms
of Eric Estrada. That's good luck in anybody's measure, always, always,
(33:25):
But yeah, Stepping on the crack, though, usually denotes bad luck.
Step on a crack, break your mother's back, step on
a line, break your father's spine. Do you know that
second one? I had heard of it, but it's certainly
not ubiquitous like your mother's back. Devo left that one out.
That's right. That wasn't a Divo song, wouldn't it was
in whip it? Right, it would be good. Remember remember
(33:48):
the Simpsons Variety Show episode where Whalen Smithers was doing
a version of whipp It but with licorice. I say,
whipp it licorice whip Oh yeah, I'm sorry. I forgot
you have covid. I gotta hilarity. Oh that's good. Um.
(34:10):
So the idea that this is bad luck it could
come from um again, from the old days where cracks
signified a gap in the boundary between Earth and the
metaphysical and if you're interacting with this chasm, even if
it's just a crack in the in the ground, then
that could bring misfortune to you in your families. Makes sense.
(34:32):
A lot of people were scared of things in the
ground or even like cravass in a wall or something
who knows what it was hiding, which you could also
kind of see stemming from those you know, hunter gatherer
days where it's like, yeah, you don't want to put
your finger in there because something really bad can happen.
And you know, the black widow could could sting you
something like that or bite you, and um, that's a
(34:53):
good way to kind of pass that along without having
to explain black widows and venom in that kind of thing.
Just there's evil spirits that drell dwelling cracks. I don't
mess with them. Yeah, I never really thought about that.
You don't go stick in your hand in a crack, No,
you'd have to be a dinghis Sorry sorry, Chuck, No, no, no,
I'm good. I'm good. That wasn't a good fall. So, um,
(35:17):
you actually do kind of fall in line with another
version of the superstition where people say that stepping on
a crack is actually a positive thing because you break
the devil's back. So you're actually breaking the devil's back,
Chuck when you do that, And basically that's where that
came from early religious days. It's possible I could actually
see that and you just forgot all about it. Well,
(35:38):
it's still a thing though, like grown adults like myself
still do it. And there was a pole supposedly in
England where three thousand people uh they pulled and said
that one in twenty would not step on cracks. Still
is grown ups because they thought it could lead to
bad luck. Yeah, and I mean there's all sorts of
other superstitions people have, like um uh, well like what chuck, uh, Emily,
(36:04):
when she passes a car with a headlight out, we'll
kiss her hand and hit the scene that. Yeah, And
I don't know if that's good luck or not or
just a sort of a game. There's supposedly, um, you
are supposed to lift your feet over a bridge. I've
seen that one. Um. Yeah, there's just a lot of
like weird, little modern superstitions that that we might never
(36:25):
know the origins of you're knocking. Yeah, which is a
good one, but we're not going to talk about that one.
Do you know the origin? Yeah? Yeah, the Celts, as
far as we know, the Celts and other cultures felt
like trees were very enchanted places, filled with all sorts
of spirits, and they would actually sacrifice humans to the trees,
(36:47):
which made them even more mystical and magical. Um. And
so when you were knocking on wood, you were basically
asking those spirits for luck or a favor, help or
something like that. And then when you knocked twice, the
second knock was meant to say thank you very much
for that help. Look at there. Yeah, and then that
appeared to be on the fly. But the secret is
(37:08):
you research that and I didn't have a chance to.
Hey man, that's okay. As long as we got it
in there, I think people would have been been like, what,
how did you not talk about that you talked about
at the beginning, you didn't follow up with it, So
we did And I feel good, Um, you feel good. Well,
then I think the superstition episode has come through a
conclusion chuck. So if you want to know more about superstitions,
(37:29):
type that word in the search bar. Good old house
stuff works and it will bring up a bunch of
good little articles about those and others we haven't talked about.
And since I said search bar, it's time for a
listener mail. Yeah. This one is from Poison Control And
this was kind of cool. We did a show on
poison control centers and we heard from poison control centers.
(37:51):
I always love it when they happened. Yeah. Same here
corrections when experts right in. Oh sure, yeah, and and
this is a correction and we're happy to issue it.
But um, they were very kind and they really love
the fact that we did a show kind of highlighting
the work they do. Uh. And they're always a little
more official, dought than like regular fanmail. And this one
(38:11):
starts out, Hello Mr Bryant to Mr Clark. We don't
know who. I hope this email finds you both. Well.
I'm a big fan of stuff you should know and
I work at the headquarters the American Association of Poison
Control Centers. We would like to express our sinceres Gratitude
for showcasing poison control centers in a recent episode of
your podcast Stuff You Should Know. Towards the end of
(38:34):
said episode, at fifty uh, you mentioned the National Poison
Helpline phone number two two two one to two two,
followed by U r L. That is not accurate. The
accurate web page triage tool for the a p c
C is poison help dot org. And I think we
said poison dot org. We need to go back and
(38:56):
fix that. And I want to accidentally spend somebody to
the wrong place. Yeah, we should probably actually do that.
The two sites have similar to you r ls, so
we completely understand. But the correct address again is www
dot poison help dot org. Thank you again for dedicating
an episode to poison control centers. Let us know if
you have any questions with gratitude this one. We got
(39:17):
a few of them. But this is from Davis Ladley
and operations associate there. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you very much, Davis.
That was a great correction and we will go do
something about it. So everybody can go here, some one
of us go poison help dot or Mr Herman right
look out for it in the counting days or weeks. Yeah, sorry,
(39:38):
we screwed up with the one U r L that
we needed to get right, right, right, because I don't
think we mentioned any others in the whole episode. Nope. Well,
if you want to get in touch with Chuck and
I like, UM, Davis did um great name by the way,
I was admired that named Davis. I thought it was
a cool first name. Yeah me too. Um. You can
send us an email to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
(40:02):
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
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