Title: Walking under a ladder

General Information about Item:

• American Superstition
• Language: English
• Origin: Ancient Egypt
• Informant: Bennett Mccaskill
• Date Collected 11/2/18

Informant Data: Bennett is a Sophomore baseball player at Dartmouth college studying Psychology. He was born in Del Mar, San Diego. His uncle was raised to believe in many superstitions, and he shared many of these superstitions with Bennett and his older brothers.

Contextual Data:

Social: Bennett is very active and enjoys being active outside with his friends. Since he grew up in San Diego, he loves to surf and hang out at the beach. Bennett is very close with his family, and his older brothers have been very influential in his life.

Cultural: This superstition has been passed from generation to generation in Bennett’s family. His uncle painted houses in San Diego, and the one time he fell from a ladder was the same day he walked under one. His co-workers shared with him the superstition that it is bad luck to walk under a ladder. He passed this superstition to Bennett’s older brothers, and his older brothers shared this superstition with Bennett at a young age.

Subgenre: bad luck superstitions

Item: If you walk under a ladder, you will have bad luck.

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

 

Transcript of Associated File:

 Max: So Bennett, tell me about your superstition regarding walking under ladders.

Bennett: Um, I guess that this superstition, well I first became aware of this superstition because of my uncle who was painting a house in San Diego, and the one day that he walked under his ladder he told me that he fell off the ladder, so that’s just been something that he passed down to me. You’re never suppose to walk under a ladder.

Informant’s Comments: none

Collector’s Comments:

I thought that it was very interesting that Bennett learned of this superstition because of his uncle’s job which requires him to work with ladders regularly. To me, this makes the superstition more powerful and credible.

Collector’s Name: Max Hunter

Tags/Keywords:

Bad luck superstitions, American, Ladders