Title: French Bad Luck

General Information about Item:

• Customary Folklore: French Supersition – Bad Luck
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: France
• Informant: Emma Loulmet
• Date Collected: May 24, 2019

Informant Data:

• Emma is a female student at Dartmouth College in the Class of 2019. She grew up in France and attended school there. At Dartmouth, she is majoring in Economics.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: French culture of today knows of many superstitions, but the superstitions do not seem to warrant any preemptive action. Through a rapid development of culture and society, France has held on to some superstitions while forgetting their underlying meaning or holding any real significance in modern day. This is a generality, as the item collected reflects the beliefs on superstitions of a female student at Dartmouth College.
• Social Context: The superstition was relayed through an in-person interview with the informant at Dartmouth College. The superstitions were generally known to the informant; however, she did not trace any specific importance to the item collected.

Item:

Bad luck occurs when someone walks under an open ladder, throws salt on a table, opens an umbrella inside, or does not look into someone’s eyes when saying ‘cheers.’ Black cats are also bad luck.

Audio File:

Transcript:

E: Emma

S: Saif

S: So if you could just start with your name and background.

E: My name is Emmanuel. I’m from Paris, France.

S: And do you have any, like, superstitions about bad luck or evil spirit, evil spirits in France?

E: Okay, black cats are seen as bad luck, walking under a ladder, opening an umbrella inside, throwing salt on the table, and also not looking into people’s eyes when you cheers.

S: And is there something like specific that occurs like if you don’t do or if you do or do not do one of those things?

E: If you don’t look into people’s eyes when you cheers it supposed to be seven years of bad sex. And… and then if you break a mirror, it’s supposed to be seven years of bad luck in general.

S: And is there like a name in French for any of these beliefs or no?

E: A name? I don’t think so. I don’t know.

S: Alright, perfect. Thank you so much.

Informant’s Comments:

The superstitions are not really followed, but rather they are passively understood to be instances of bad luck.

Collector’s Comments:

The superstitions are also known in the U.S. The item collected lacks depth on any historical or cultural importance; however, we have decided to include this item as it may be further developed later within another context.

Collector’s Name: Saif Malley

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Folklore
• French Superstition
• Black cat