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