Title: Sposa Bagnata, Sposa Fortunata
General Information about Item:
- Customary Folklore: Belief, Superstition
- English
- Italy
Informant Data:
- Nancy Canepa has been an Italian professor at Dartmouth College since 1989. She is descended from Italian immigrants on her father’s side. Her paternal grandmother is from the Lombardy region of Italy, and her paternal grandfather is from the Liguria coast. She has attended two Italian weddings. Her husband is from the Apulia region of Italy.
Contextual Data:
- Social/Cultural Context: In Italy, rain on the day of a wedding symbolizes that the couple will have good luck in their relationship and their marriage. This belief is fairly universal throughout Italy, and was collected by informants who live in Northern, Southern, and Central Italy.
Item:
- Professor Canepa read us an Italian phrase which she had written down in preparation for the interview. She noted that in her region of Italy, rain on the wedding day is tied to luck and an abundance of love in a relationship.
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
Transcript of Associated File:
- “Number 1: Sposa bagnata sposa fortunata: A -uh- rained upon bride is a lucky bride. Um, again, I don’t know what the regional origin of this is exactly. But the metaphorical meaning of it which I think is pretty clear is that when a bride is rained upon symbollicaly it refers to her -um- luck and abundance being rained upon her entire marriage.”
Informant’s Comments:
- The informant believed that rain is tied to luck and an abundance of love. In this interpretation, the informant drew a connection between the two different definitions of rain, one being the physical droplets of rain, and the other being a metaphorical downpour.
Collector’s Comments:
- The informant believed that the superstition of rain being good luck for marriages is tied to luck and an abundance of love. The informant said that “rain on your wedding day symbolizes the raining down of luck in your future together”. This interpretation is different from the usual association of rain and fertility. This may be because the informant comes from a more rural region of Italy, where rain is tied to the growth of crops. From the magical law of similarity, one could conclude that if rain has a positive effect on crops, it also has a positive effect relationships.
Collector’s Name: Peter Loomis
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