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