Family traditions and superstitions
My parents always opened the back door and the front door at 12pm on New Years Eve.
I can understand that - letting the old year out and letting the New Year in, and I confess that I would still do it if I had the chance.
However, Darllenwr was saying that his grandmother, who was quite superstitious, would insist that on the first day of the month, the first thing you had to say was “rabbits, rabbits, rabbits “. (Needless to say, this has not been passed down the family!)
Where did this come from, and why?
Does anyone else either have, or know of, strange family superstitions?
I can understand that - letting the old year out and letting the New Year in, and I confess that I would still do it if I had the chance.
However, Darllenwr was saying that his grandmother, who was quite superstitious, would insist that on the first day of the month, the first thing you had to say was “rabbits, rabbits, rabbits “. (Needless to say, this has not been passed down the family!)
Where did this come from, and why?
Does anyone else either have, or know of, strange family superstitions?

Comments
After she died, I came into possession of the elephant, and always positioned it that way, and still do.
I'm glad to carry those on with gusto, though the TV one has somewhat lost its punch in these days of small screens and my kids seem even more reluctant to dress warmly than I was. But I'll teach the feckers with the last one, so I will
Rather confusing cause and effect, but there you go.
I think a few of my Mum's health ones (who was old-ish to be having kids (me) in 1970) came from her Mum (who was very old to be having a kid (Mum) in 1933) - and that they come from a time of no NHS, no antibiotics, no money, and (as I have been reflecting over the last year) recent deadly pandemics. 'You'll catch your death' (yeah, yeah, Mum) is something I've thought about a fair bit recently.
I was always terribly annoyed that it didn't work and give me something other than my poker straight and fine hair.
Never bring blackthorn into the house.
A picture falling off a wall is a death foretold.
Pull the curtains or the sunlight will put the fire out.
Don't wash your hair when menstruating (there were quite a few things that were mysteriously 'bad for you' if you were female).
Baking soda as a universal panacea (not for burns it isn't).
Many of my questions she replied to with "Y has a long tail but you can't pull it"
I'd starve to death. The only way I can imagine to make fish taste any worse than it already does would be pickling it.
Others I recall are:
Friday night’s dream, if Saturday told, will surely come true no matter how old.
Never look at the new moon through glass.
Wash on a Friday [?not sure which day...], wash one of the family away.
If you spill salt, throw a pinch of it over your left shoulder.
If you say the same thing at exactly the same time as someone else, you have to link your little fingers and say a poet’s name.
No shoes to be left on the table.
Like Firenze, a falling picture was a death in the family.
You always wished someone with a new car 'health to drive'.
Near Year's: first footing had to be a tall dark stranger bearing food and drink.
Never leave your knife and fork crossed on your plate when you'd finished.
Throw salt over the shoulder, when spilt at the table, to blind the devil in the eye so he couldn't see you'd been clumsy.
Hang a mirror in the front lobby by the door, so the devil when entering the house with you would spot his reflection and be scared off, and not come any further.
'Ne'er cast a clout, till may is out.'
Never put a brolly up indoors.
A fork falling to the floor meant a woman was coming.
An itchy nose needing a scratch meant you were going to have a fight with someone. (You could rap somebody on the back of their hand to dissipate the curse.)
An itchy palm meant money was coming your way.
And an itch in your foot meant you would soon be treading new ground.
Bad luck to bring peacock feathers into the house.
She was a nurse and had what I believe is a common nurse's superstition about red and white flowers in the same vase, as they signify blood on bandages. It's ok if there's another colour flower in the vase as well.
She also had the superstition that being given a pair of gloves meant a parting. I well remember her sharp intake of breath one Christmas when she unwrapped her neighbour's present of gloves. (My father, strangely, died the following year.)
I've noticed Rachael Ray doing that on her shows when she cooks.
You've reminded me, that was my Mum's version. She grew up in Wiltshire, and her side had links to Somerset I think. She had the one about itchy noses and fighting, and I think crossed knife and fork on an empty plate meant the same. But Mum and Dad were so class-conscious (that is, hoping we would be upwardly mobile, I guess) that it was probably mixed up with not being 'common'. You're not wearing jeans to church - elbows off the table and hands out of your pockets - close your mouth when you're chewing (well, OK) and 'it's buTTer, NOT buh--uhh!'
Quite a few of these ring bells with me now. And there are all those ones about corn dollies (fertility) and spinning wedding rings on strings over pregnant women to foretell a boy or a girl.
We think we’re not superstitious, but subconsciously, we probably still are.
One year, our kids were out on Shrove Tuesday, so it was just Mrs Claypool and myself. As we were settling into the kitchen to make pancakes, we heard a knock on the door. It was Magda. "I hope you don't mind, but I wondered if I could come for pancakes."
Shortly after that, we moved away and now live in a different continent but every Shrove Tuesday, as we start cooking pancakes, we pause and wait for a knock on the door, just in case Magda has found us again.
Don't walk under a ladder, always walk round it.
Pick a four-leaf clover for luck (I spent ages looking for one; eventually someone gave me one, I had begun to think they didn't really exist.)
(It's amazing how many nostalgic conversations amongst men of my age gravitate to 'and why _do_ you no longer see white dog turds?').
Chilblains are itch painful purplish-red lumps on the fingers & toes often seen in cold climates especially after rapid transition from heat to cold.
Uncommon in coastal NSW ( have only seen twice in professional life) but seen in colder places such as NSW and Victoria high country and Tasmania
And my maternal grandmother, Blodwyn, always used to counsel us as children to ensure we wore fresh underwear every day in case we were run over by a car and taken to hospital. This was always the queue for me to crack a joke about determining blame for such a road traffic collision by measuring the skidmarks.
My mum used to say "rabbits, rabbits, rabbits" on the first of the month; for some reason I think it was only on months with an "R" in them, i.e. September to April, but I could be mistaken about that bit.
You must never give anyone something empty as a present - e.g. put something in a purse, even if only a penny (probably bad luck again?).
Catching a falling leaf in a certain month is good luck, but I can’t remember which month! October?
If you peel an entire apple without a break in the skin, throw the peel on the ground and it will reveal the initial of your sweetheart (NB: this is unfairly biased towards people whose names begin with S, and you should possibly not try it if you have a secret yearning for someone whose name begins with letters such as K).
If you want to live and thrive, let the spiders run alive (I didn’t appreciate this one as I was terrified of spiders).
If we saw a white horse we had to cross our fingers till we saw a black dog
My maternal grandmother (whose mother was born in County Clare, Ireland) would send us 4-leaf clovers (dried and wrapped in tissue paper) in the post with a piece of light card (to stop the envelope getting bent I assume)
I always do the salt over the shoulder thing. I have had a few jobs working with food over the years so that has caused much amusement among my workmates
There is a "thing" here my daughter brought home: never pass a knife from hand to hand. (Lay it on a surface and then the other person picks it up). It's so common you have to be aware of it or people look at you like you're wishing them an awful death tomorrow
The AA Milne poem about Christopher Robin always sticking to the squares would be quoted:
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Other way around - it's heating up too fast after being chilled that causes them. I've had them a few times as I have Reynaud syndrome. Can be sore for a couple of days. I find warm water best for warming cold hands and avoiding chillblains.
That's interesting. I used to work in noise and vibration, including the design of vibration-reduced power tools for mitigating the industrial version of what you suffer from.
That happens. Back in the day it was believed that being touched by a Royal would cure scrofula. (I believe that Queen Anne was the last British Royal to lay on hands for scrofula.) In a reversal of this, when Emelian Pugachev led the last great Russian peasant revolt* in 1773-74, he claimed to be in fact Peter III, who had been killed in Catherine the Great's coup against him (her husband). Pugachev, as Peter, claimed to have escaped from the palace, that his death was an exaggeration, and that he had been in hiding in the interim. As proof of his royal identity, Pugachev pointed to his own scrofula.
*This was very serious. Pugachev managed to capture Kazan, posed a potential threat to Moscow, and as legacy, so frightened Catherine and the gentry that their relationship was cemented in common cause, and any reform of serfdom (except for the Baltic Governorships) was delayed for almost a century. Pushkin, ever the master, captured the destructiveness of the revolt in his The History of Pugachev with the sentence, "They were in retreat, and it seemed an invasion."
*The spilling of salt required throwing salt over the left shoulder, because that's where Satan lurks.
*In university residence a friend of mine was amused when in the dining hall he started to stir his tea with a knife and I and another friend screamed "Stop that!"
*When giving a knife, the recipient must "pay" you for it.
*On New Year's Eve, if your first guest ("the first footer") is dark haired, it's good luck for the year; a ginger is bad luck.
*Not a superstition as such, but when something couldn't be found around the house, my Italian nanny (who was very religious) would say, "It'll show up when the Devil is tired of playing with it." (For the record, she did not believe that.)
This wasn't part of our folklore, but the thing about shoes that I know is that shoes on a bed is bad luck. I think that it's probably because the only time that one wears shoes on a bed is as a corpse.
No shoes on the bed, causing unexplained chaos when I was taken to the doctor as I had lace ups on and the doc didn’t have time for this!
Knives and forks Never crossed.
No hawthorn blossom in the house.
The red and white thing with flower vases was strong in our home and at church. Even in St George Day the centre of the cross had a daisy in it. When I challenged mum on this she Strongly denied any such superstitious base instead giving a rather weak explanation involving the ability of ones eyes to focus after seeing red and white together.....
No cutting nails on Sunday or washing one’s hair , but upon reflection that was Maybe merely an extension of not unnecessarily
working on Sunday + Sunday Toys.
Umberellas were never opened indoors. But could be bought inside while still up to be dried.
Head stands and hands stands within an hour of eating could kill us . Also somersaults.
Open window after a death.
My father rubbished the lot of ‘em, my mother went to great lengths to explain.
That said , mum would go out of her way to walk under a ladder!
I'm sure there are more.