Tag Archives: Bad luck

Superstition #21: Don’t Break Any Mirrors

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Title: Don’t Break Any Mirrors

General Information about Item:

  • Genre and Sub Genre
  • Verbal Folklore: Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: United States

Informant Data:

  • Matt Vance is a student of the class of 2018 and has roots in the Irish, English, and Dutch. He was born in London and raised in New York. He is agnostic, he is fiscally conservative and socially democratic. His hobby is reading and running. He hopes to help people and be a good father.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: The informant learned this superstition when he was 10 at a camp and learned it when he started hearing other kids warning him about breaking mirrors.
  • Cultural Context: Centuries ago, mirrors were not cheap and not taken for granted as they are today. Mirrors were expensive and almost like a luxury item, so therefore breaking one would deliver bad luck.

Item:

  • Bad Luck Superstition: Breaking mirrors brings bad luck.

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

Transcript of Associated File:

Matt_Transcript

Informant’s Comments:

  • Matt said he believes in karma, or the notion that if you mess with the universe, it messes with you back. Moreover, Matt doesn’t take these superstitions for face value and chooses to follow them loosely. Not breaking any mirrors, however, is one superstition he chooses to follow.

Collector’s Comments:

  • It’s interesting to see that Matt avoids breaking windows considering he follows all the other superstitions loosely. Even though mirrors are not as expensive as they were in the past, breaking them today is still generally avoided because mirrors provide utility and replacing one is a hassle.

Collector’s Name: Gaurav Varma

Tags/Keywords:

  • American/Bad Luck/Superstition/Breaking/Mirrors

 

Say “No” to the Charms

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Title: Say “No” to the Charms

Informant info: Informant name is Jason Laackmann. Jason is twenty-eight years old and attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH as a United States Army Veteran. Jason served in the Army for five years in active duty and continues to serve in the Minnesota National Guard. The locations in which he has served are Fort Bend, Georgia, Fort Riley, Kansas, and overseas in Eastern Afghanistan.

Type of lore: Customary Folklore, Superstition

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Jason was interviewed at Dartmouth College. He was asked to talk about any superstitions he may recall during his time in the army. Informant did not state how he obtained the meals regarding this superstition, but focuses more on the content of the meal rather than the way in which he received them.

Associated File: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6KcnEdk7Q4 (start at 2:38)

Transcript:  [I have recorded the item exactly how it was told to me in the interview]: Um, so one of the things that you do is, uh, when you’re in the woods, if you get a piece of candy called a charm, you, you throw it away immediately, you never open it. Because that’s you know, gonna bring rain and you never want to train when it’s raining. It’s, it’s a terrible feeling, ‘cause you don’t want to be cold and you don’t want to be wet, and you definitely don’t want to have a combination of the two.

Informant’s comments: Jason stated that it seems funny when you hear about it for the first time or when you don’t know much about it, but to them it’s something they take seriously, especially since these charms are considered to bring bad luck rather than good.

Collector’s comments: Jason chuckled when telling the story, but I could also sense how feared the charms were during his time in the Army.

It’s Bad Luck to Say “Good Luck!”

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Title: It’s Bad Luck to Say “Good Luck!”

Informant info: Informant name is Jason Laackmann. Jason is twenty-eight years old and attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH as a United States Army Veteran. Jason served in the Army for five years in active duty and continues to serve in the Minnesota National Guard. The locations in which he has served are Fort Bend, Georgia, Fort Riley, Kansas, and overseas in Eastern Afghanistan.

Type of lore: Customary Folklore, Superstition

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Jason was interviewed at Dartmouth College. He was asked to talk about any superstitions he may recall during his time as a paratrooper in the army. Informant was very serious when stating that one should never say good luck, but then gave a smile when he stated how he would react and cracked a joke.

Associated File: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6KcnEdk7Q4 (Start at 2:55)

Transcript:  [I have recorded the item exactly how it was told to me in the interview]: Um, as a paratrooper, you, you never tell somebody, you know, “good luck” before they jump out of the airplane. It’s a bad omen and if somebody ever said it to me, I’d be, I’d be freaking out as soon as my parachute opened. I’d be afraid I was going to break my leg or my shoulder when I landed.

Informant’s comments: Jason takes this superstition seriously and is very nervous before jumping out of the air plane in the off chance someone might say “good luck!” on his way out.

Collector’s comments: Jason was serious at first when discussing this superstition, but was able to make a light-hearted joke at the end.

Never Eat the Charms

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Title: Never Eat the Charms

Informant info: Informant requested to remain anonymous. Informant attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH as a United States Army Veteran. Informant enlisted in the Army in 2005 and was a member of the Army Infantry 10th Mountain Division of Fort Drum, New York. Informant served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007. Informant is 28 years old.

Type of lore: Customary Folklore, Superstition, Contagious Magic

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Informant was interviewed at Dartmouth College. Informant was asked about certain superstitions or rituals that they had experienced during their time in the military. Informant explained that contained in their MREs (meals ready to eat) there are various different foods like dried sausages and peanut butter and crackers. There are also rainbow colored candies, however, you are not allowed to eat them. If you eat them it will bring very bad luck upon you like rain or getting hit by an IED (improvised explosion device).

Associated file: Informant requested to remain completely anonymous.

Transcript:  [I have recorded the item exactly how it was told to me in the interview]: So in the army you eat MREs. They’re like these… they come in these big heavy-duty plastic like round-like packages. And inside them are these like various dried and dehydrated, non-perishable foods that can survive the end of the world. Uh, they’ll have all kinds of things like these weird beef patties and raviolis and packets of cheese and peanut butter—peanut butter is like priceless—uh but one of the things in there is the charms. And you’re thinking like lucky charms but they’re just called charms. And they’re in like, they’re like these square rainbow colored candies um and I have no idea what they taste like because I have never eaten the charms. Um and uh you’re not supposed to eat the charms. You know they’re like the devils temptation. Have this sweet treat of wonderful goodness to make yourself feel better. But you can’t do it because it will rain terrible, terrible luck upon you. Like, uh, really bad weather. Or uh, you might go out on patrol and get hit by an IED, uh just all kinds of shit storms so just like don’t eat the charms. Everyone will freak out on you and say what are you doing? I’ve seen people get completely like dog piled for even like joking about eating the charms. They’re like lifesavers or jolly ranchers. They look more like jolly ranchers. But I wouldn’t know what they taste like because I’ve never eaten them. I mean I’ve eaten jolly ranchers just not charms because they’re evil.

Informant’s comments: During the informants response he commented on MREs which is an abbreviation of meals ready to eat. Informant told me that the following is a common superstition across all branches of the military. Informant also noted that they have witnessed people get punched and tackled for eating them.

Collector’s comments: Due to informants request to remain anonymous, I attempted to include various displays of emotions within the interview using parenthesis.