Tuesday Trivia...

I don't have a specific question today, such as KC's last week (What the f*ck is a canuck?), but a more general one:  Where do superstitions come from?  Like knocking on wood, keeping your fingers crossed, etc.  I ran across a great slideshow on life.com (has that sentence ever been uttered before?) that goes through some of the most common ones.

Here's a few of the more everyday superstitions (all from life.com):

Hanging a Horseshoe for good luck:

Horseshoes have been around for centuries as a method of protecting horse's feet, but the tradition of hanging a horseshoe for good luck (usually with the open side up, to "hold in" good fortune) started with the legend of the popular 10th-century English St. Dunstan, at least according to one account. St. Dunstan tricked the Devil into letting him nail a horseshoe onto the Infernal One's goat-like hoof, and only removed the painfully offending shoe if the Devil swore to never enter a place that had a horseshoe over it.

Crossing your fingers:

Though some believe that crossing your fingers originated as a sign early Christians used to identify each other, it really started much earlier. Before Christ, the cross was a sign of unity in Europe, and it was traditional for two people to make a wish by forming a cross with their index fingers -- one person made the wish, and the other added his mojo. The ritual eventually evolved into a do-it-yourself motion. 

Friday the 13th:

There are several explanations for why the number 13 -- and Friday the 13th in particular -- are considered unlucky in the West. One says that there were 13 who sat down to the Last Supper, the final guest being Jesus, who was betrayed. (A variation of the unlucky-13 superstition is that if 13 people sit down to a meal, one of them will die within the year.) Another is that King Philip IV of France ordered the Knights Templar imprisoned on a Friday the 13th. Yet another is that the lunar calendar has 12 full months and a runt 13th month that gave early scholars and timekeepers no end of headaches. Regardless, it's worth noting that in Spanish-speaking countries, it's Tuesday the 13th that's unlucky, and that the number 13 is a lucky number in Sikh culture. And in 2002, a Dutch study found that there were actually fewer traffic accidents, fire accidents, and thefts on Friday the 13ths than on other Fridays.

Broken mirrors:

With mirrors' uncanny ability to create another you, it's not surprising that breaking something that creates a perfect, if two-dimensional, simulacrum would be considered bad luck. The seven years part come from an ancient belief that that's how long it takes for the body and soul to fully regenerate in humans. Here: Actress Carole Lombard risks bad luck with cracked mirrors in 1935. She died in a Nevada plane crash at age 33 in 1942 -- seven years after this photo was taken.

Knocking on wood:

Knocking on wood (or touching wood) is a superstition in which one performs the act in order to forestall bad luck. It traces its roots to paganism, when it was believed that spirits dwelt in trees, and that knocking on a tree trunk was way to invoke their benevolent powers.

Opening an umbrella inside:

The warning against opening umbrellas indoors may hearken back to ancient Egypt when they were used not to protect against the rain but against the sun. Using them indoors, where there was already shade, could be interpreted as an insult against the sun god.

This was the one that really blew me away about the superstition surrounding stepping on a gypsy's secret talis:

-Big Ran

Bonus Superstition video: