Lucky Jewlery #3

Title: Lucky Ring

General Information about Item:

  • Ritual
  • English
  • United States

Informant Data:

  • Megan Greig was born in St. Clair, Michigan on December 2, 1998. Her father is a carpenter and her mother is a realtor. Megan is American, but her family origin is German, making her background North American and Western European. Megan is a freshman at Dartmouth College studying econ and is hopeful for a career in law.  Megan is involved in various business clubs on campus and is in the process of joining one of the debate teams.

Contextual Data:

Social Context:

  • This data was collected during an interview at Collis on October 30, 2017. Megan described to me a superstition that she practices to help her perform well on all of her exams. Megan is an econ major on a pre-law track and by wearing the ring on the day of every exam, Megan believes that it helps her perform better than when she is not wearing it. This ritual was passed onto Megan from one of her upperclassmen friends who is also an econ major. Her friend explained to her how on the day of every exam, she wears the same ring on the same finger of her writing hand as she believes that the ring affords her good luck and that she would not perform well if she was not wearing it. Megan then tried the same thing by wearing a ring that she has on the day of her exams and she performed a lot better than when she was not wearing the ring. She has since told her other friends about this superstition of hers.  

Cultural Context:

  • The cultural context of this folklore reflects the competitive atmosphere of being on a pre-law track. Law school is extremely competitive and it requires one to academically well and obtain a great GPA, and this added pressure makes people turn to practicing various rituals in order to perform well academically, so one turns to various superstitions in order to perform well. The cultural context also reflects the competitive atmosphere of Dartmouth College and the added pressure to do very well academically in order to receive great job offers and entrance into great graduate schools and programs. With Dartmouth College being on a quarter system, this adds even more pressure to students as the terms proceed rapidly and falling behind is something that every student must avoid if they want to perform well academically, so they turn to performing superstitions to help them perform well.

Item:

  • On the day of an exam, Megan wears a specific ring to help her perform better on her exams. Megan said that her friend who is an upperclassman and an econ major as well told her about the superstition and that by her wearing the same ring for each exam, she believes that she performs substantially better than when she does not wear the ring. Megan explained to me “On the day of each exam, I wear the same ring on the same finger on my right hand. I believe that by having the ring on my writing hand, the ring will transfer luck and help guide me towards writing the correct answers. The ring provides me with comfort in knowing that I will perform well on my exam when I have it on my finger.”

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

 

Collector’s Name: Miranda Greig

Tags/Keywords:Physical Charm. Contagious Magic. Superstition.

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