Apologies for my absence on the site and on Facebook but I’ve been ill in bed with a virus for the past couple of days. I’m back now though!
My son pointed out that today is Friday 13th, the day when some superstitious people won’t leave the house, fly, or do anything that could risk injury. Now, I’m not at all superstitious and nothing bad has ever happened to me on Friday 13th – touch wood 🙂 – but Tudor people were superstitious.
I haven’t had chance to write a new article about this, but click here to read my previous article on Tudor superstitions.
So Sorry you have been unwell ! (having just had three vicious bouts of vertigo I feel your pain). You were missed!
Love the new look of the site! I hope you feel better, Claire.
I see Anne is dressed up for the festivities’ above, she looks very regal.
My Gran was very superstitious, and as I lived with her when I was a child, although I had never took them seriously, I still remember them.
Blackbirds and Robins were bad luck, a blackbird is the bearer of bad news (2 together is good news!) Robins are omen of death, if one comes into the house if anyone is ill they will not last the night!! yet on the other hand it is bad luck to kill a Robin. My Gran used to hate having Robins on her Xmas cards, and would run outside and shoo them out of the garden.
Personally Robins are my favourite little bird, they follow you in the garden, I have actually stroked one on the breast it become that tame, and I have at lest 3 or 4 pop in the house in summer when the door is open they are so curious, my poor old Gran would have swooned with fear, 🙂 bless her.
No lilies where allowed in the house unless some one had died – they were funeral flowers, no foxgloves either brings anger, snowdrops are unlucky.
You must leave by the same door you entered the house by, otherwise you take out the luck.
If you dropped a glove someone else should pick it up for you to bring luck.
Putting a silver coin into a new born’s hand will bring them wealth.
The list was endless with my Gran, loads to do with weather conditions, and I suspect they were taught to her by her mother, and so on back through the generations.
The only ones I tend to adhere to is not putting new shoes bad on the table and walking under a ladder, but that one makes logical sense if someone is up the ladder, they could drop something or fall on you.
I am not bothered by Friday 13th, in fact I had forgotten what day it was, did I have any bad luck today, well if you consider I have just had to fork out for a new tumble drier today, an expense I could have done without at this time of year, then yes I have, but as soon as I had paid for it I found out I had just won £50 on the lotto, not enough to pay for it all but it sure did help. Its luck of the draw any day/date of the week when it comes down to it I think…
Very interesting superstions. Sorry bout the dryer, happy bout the lotto, . All I got was this darn cold sore, had virus all week just like Claire. First time ever a cold sore on my lip . Ugh!
Oh dear! poor old you Terri, hope you are on the mend now.
Cold sores are horrid things aren’t they. Apparently if you kiss a ‘Black-eyed Beauty’ it will disappear, not a superstition as such, but on the same lines. But it will be finding such a ‘beauty’ willing to give you kiss when you have a cold sore 🙂
As much as the lotto win was a great help, it would have been nice if there had been a few more noughts on the end, another 5 of those would have been so much more than welcome…lol. Get well soon.
It is amazing just what people have believed in the past but are they supistitions or are they simply ways that helped them to make sense of their world? To the late Tudor mind; after the first laws against witches were passed malfrica or harming through witchcraft were considered dangerous to society. Witches could then be hunted, blamed for all sorts of thing, cows not milking, men being impotent, harming people, even through the night when all were asleep with a spirit, causng crops to fail and storms, etc. These were believed through the Middle Ages as well and even later in the Enlightenment, but from the 16th century many of these things were thing that could be used to name a person witch and denunce someone you do not like; and could lead to death.
We are just as superstitious today; although I am not bothered by many modern nonsense things. I am not bothered about Friday 13th and for some it is actually a lucky number. One story of the origin is that there were 13 at the last Super; which was not on a Friday but a Thursday night: the day before the Passover. Another more recent story is that on a Friday 13th in the year 1307 the soldiers of the King of France Philip the Fair, ordered all the Templar houses and religious places to be raided, them arrested and put in prison and all their alleged wealth seized. This incident led to a long a brutal trial of the Templars across much of Europe, followed by deaths and prison and torture, the end of their rule officially, and following a second trial by the Pope the disbanding of the order. The second trial did much to restore their reputation. But the day they were attacked has been seen as an unlucky day ever since: Friday 13th.
In fact there is no such thing as an unlucky day or a lucky day: there are just things that happen good or bad; that is the way things are and to some extent we make our own luck. Some may say that luck is just seeing an opportunty and taking it. But there are probably as many superstitions today as there have ever been. People believe in wicca; nature, not walking under ladders, not putting shoes on the bed in case it rains, not opening an umbrella indoors; throwing salt over our shoulder, which apparently was throwing it in the face of the demon who sat behind you and made you spill it in the first place; that if it rains on St Swithan’s day it will rain for 40 days; another old one with no valid record behind it; crossing your fingers behind your back if you lie; getting out of bed the same side; we all have rituals that we follow during some periods of the day or our lives, and we often follow religious symbols to ward of Evil. The blue eye is pinned on our clothes if we travel to some parts of the East against the Evil Eye; and although bones and relics actually have no power in themselves; for over a thousand years we have visited the shrines of saints and so on to pray for help from God or the saint that we will have mercy or healing. The faith is not in the object but in the meaning that we find from that person, inspiration and our faith in God. Pilgrimages were made to such shrines to offer prayer and to show faith, some even today are very popular, and the holy sites are making a great come back. In 1539 many of these were forbidden here; but they still continued and continue today.
Again, we are seeking something beyond ourselves and making sense of our world just as people did in Tudor times. Times may change; people do not. Cheers.
Oh, and Claire, hope you are feeling better. Thanks