Very superstitious… (or is it a saying, or perhaps an old wives tale?)
Red sky at night shepherds’ delight (makes my think of pink angel’s delight desert). Red sky in the morning, sailors’ warning. What a beauty of a morning it was too- well time will tell us if today’s pink curdled clouds lead to torrential rain and storms or blue, blue skies till the evening draws in.
Superstition meshes quite well the warped laws of reason I had as a kid (if I can hold my breath until I get to that big tree up there Mum will buy me those new trainers) and it legitimises irrational logic into adulthood. But I’m not any more open about these reasonings I have now: Trying to hide the fact that I’d step out in front of busses in order to avoid walking under ladders with a shoddily faked stumble.
My most engrained practice is saluting to magpies. I think I inherited this from my brother (obviously from a long and spread out lineage of saluters) When I was learning to drive the countryside my driving instructor used to take me to (on account of its many straight roads and out of town supermarkets with rows of empty parking spaces for practicing my least favourite manoeuvre ‘reverse into a bay’) was rife with magpies. I think she thought I had a bit of a twitch as I tried to cover my salutes as eyebrow itches and hair flicks- why such shame?!
The saluting kind of conflicts with that other magpie saying: ‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl four for a boy’ (any one remember the rest my memory fails me there?) I’ve always kind of ignored that one- apart from if there happens to be two magpies, which seems to be the only good outcome.
I have lots of friends who follow the drain thing- I can’t remember it exactly it’s not my thing- something like step on 3 and something really bad happens. I did try and stick to the ‘don’t step on the cracks you’ll brake your Mother’s back’ (horrible!) but on moving to London this got a bit of a thankless task that made me look too odd so I had to quash it.
Please write in to tell us some of your superstitious practices