Superstitions! - Mindmap 07 - Conditional I

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THEM?

One rainy, foggy autumn day, the wind was blowing through the few brown leaves still clinging to the trees. Thirteen black cats were sitting on the wall surrounding the park. One of them jumped down from there. Her yellow eyes shone in the light of the street lamps in front of the park. An old mirror had been put against the wall and its shards were lying on the wet ground.

That’s a very bad sign.

Or is it? Do you believe in superstitions like the ones mentioned above? I will tell you something about them, and about other superstitions in Austria, the country I was born in.

Everybody knows the following superstitious belief: If a mirror breaks, this will mean bad luck for seven years. There is a reason for this particular belief. A long time ago, they made their mirrors out of mercury* and when they broke, the mercury came out. This was very dangerous, because mercury is very poisonous. So, people became sick and some of them died. Pretty soon the conviction that breaking a mirror meant bad luck took root in people’s minds, and some people still believe in it.

But that is not the only superstition here. For example, there is one, my grandma believes in. She thinks, if you leave your laundry hanging overnight on New Year’s Eve, somebody from your family will die. She doesn’t really think that it is real, but she still takes off the laundry before New Year’s Eve. I have noticed, that many old people are superstitious. I think that most of them are more than fifty years old.

I am not really superstitious, however, I somehow seem to love all the things that will bring bad luck. Like my favorite day is Friday, the 13^th, and if I were so lucky as to have a cat, she would be black, because I love them. Also, the number thirteen brings me luck, I think. So, I am maybe a little superstitious like most people, but in a decidedly twisted way.

I guess everybody has their own way of thinking about them. What is yours?

 

 *Quecksilber                                                           article about superstitions by Mia Dugueperoux