Tag Archives: Indoors

Superstition #23: Don’t Open Umbrellas Indoors

Title: Don’t Open Umbrellas Indoors

General Information about Item:

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

Informant Data:

  • Libby Decker is a member of the class of 2020 and is a 2nd generation United State born citizen of Irish background. Libby was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. She practices Catholicism, leans right politically, and is a History and Spanish double major. In her free time, Libby enjoys leading trips, dancing, and swimming.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: When Libby was young, she opened her umbrella indoors. Her dad pointed that out and told her not to open umbrella’s in the future or it will bring bad luck.
  • Cultural Context: This superstition has roots in 18th century London, England. At the time, umbrellas were very heavy and opening one indoors would often be dangerous because the metal spokes could potentially injure someone or break fragile items. Because of this, people at the time condemned opening umbrella’s indoors.

Item:

  • Bad Luck Superstition: Opening umbrellas indoors brings bad luck.

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

Transcript of Associated File:

Libby_Transcript

Informant’s Comments:

  • Libby said she generally follows this superstition because she believes opening umbrella’s indoors will bring her bad luck. In retrospect, Libby thinks opening umbrellas indoors can be dangerous and therefore should be avoided even if doing so doesn’t bring bad luck.

Collector’s Comments:

  • It’s interesting to see that Libby’s father taught her the superstition because a common theme that is seen throughout most of my interviewees is that their relatives are the ones teaching them. Given Ireland’s proximity to England, it is not surprising that Libby’s dad, who is born in Ireland, learned this superstition growing up.

Collector’s Name: Gaurav Varma

Tags/Keywords:

  • American/Bad Luck/Superstition/Umbrella/Indoors