Superstitions and Omens
Superstitions are the little rules you follow even when you’re not completely sure you believe them.
You knock on wood after saying something hopeful, avoid walking under a ladder or feel a brief flicker of concern when a mirror breaks. You might laugh at yourself while you’re doing it, but you still do it. There’s always that thought in the back of your mind that says it’s better not to take the chance.
Omens work slightly differently. Instead of doing something to attract luck or keep trouble away, you notice an event that feels as though it could be pointing towards what comes next. A bird appearing at a particular moment, a sudden change in the weather or an object breaking without warning can start to feel important when you’re already waiting for news or trying to make sense of a change.
This collection explores the histories and possible meanings behind those beliefs. Some can be traced through old folklore records, religious traditions or dangerous occupations. Others have been given several convincing origin stories, but nobody can prove which one came first.
We’ll separate what’s documented from what has been repeated, look at how meanings change between cultures and explain why an ordinary event doesn’t have to control what happens to you next.
Start Here
What Is a Superstition?
Find out what counts as a superstition, how these beliefs spread and why the word itself isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds.
Weird Superstitions From Around the World
Explore beliefs involving forbidden bananas, unlucky numbers, theatrical curses, green hats, lucky grapes, broken pomegranates and seven ocean waves.
Everyday Bad Luck and How People Try to Stop It
Why Do People Knock on Wood?
Explore why people touch or knock on wood after saying something hopeful, whether the custom can really be traced to tree spirits and why it feels risky to leave the ritual unfinished.
Why Do People Throw Salt Over Their Shoulder?
Discover how spilled salt became connected with arguments and bad luck, why the left shoulder matters and what Judas has to do with the story.
Why Is Walking Under a Ladder Bad Luck?
Look into the sacred-triangle, Trinity and gallows explanations, along with the very real reason walking beneath an active ladder is best avoided.
Why Does Breaking a Mirror Bring Seven Years of Bad Luck?
Find out how mirrors became connected with souls and hidden knowledge, where the seven-year punishment might have come from and whether any ritual can reverse it.
Animals, Numbers and Unlucky Dates
Why Are Black Cats Considered Bad Luck?
Follow the connection between black cats, witches and misfortune, and discover why the same animal has been welcomed as a sign of luck elsewhere.
Why Is Friday the 13th Considered Unlucky?
Discover how an unlucky day and an unlucky number became one famous date, whether the Knights Templar story is true and why other countries worry about completely different numbers.
What Is the Difference Between a Superstition and an Omen?
A superstition connects an action, object or event with an outcome even though there’s no proven physical link between them. Carrying a lucky charm is supposed to help things go your way. Opening an umbrella indoors, spilling salt or putting shoes on a table is supposed to invite trouble.
An omen is something you notice and interpret as a sign of a future event. It doesn’t always ask you to do anything. The meaning is found in what happened, when it happened and what you believe it could be warning you about or preparing you for.
The two overlap all the time. A black cat crossing your path can be described as an omen because the animal’s appearance is treated as a sign. Changing your route whenever you see a black cat turns that interpretation into a superstitious habit.
A broken mirror is another example. The glass breaking is an accident. Treating that accident as an omen of coming trouble gives it a future meaning, while burying the pieces or throwing them into running water becomes the ritual meant to stop it.
Even the word superstition needs some care. What one person dismisses as superstition might be understood by someone else as a family tradition, spiritual belief, religious practice or part of their cultural identity. Not every ritual that looks unfamiliar from the outside belongs in the same category.
When an Ordinary Moment Starts Feeling Like a Sign
Most things connected with omens aren’t unusual on their own. Birds land nearby, pictures fall from walls, candles flicker and animals behave in ways you didn’t expect. What changes is the timing.
If something strange happens while you’re thinking about a particular person, waiting for an answer or facing a difficult decision, it can feel connected to everything already going on. You start wondering why it happened at that exact moment and whether you were supposed to notice.
That feeling can be comforting when the sign seems hopeful. A certain bird appearing after you asked for reassurance might feel like an answer. When you’ve heard the same bird described as a warning, though, the encounter can leave you frightened by something that would normally have passed unnoticed.
Looking into the folklore often takes some of that certainty away. The same animal or event can carry several meanings, and they don’t always agree. A bird connected with death in one story might represent protection, good news or the return of someone loved in another.
Once you know there isn’t one fixed interpretation, the omen stops looking like a guaranteed prediction. It becomes part of a much larger collection of stories people have used to understand moments that felt too well timed to ignore.
Good Luck, Bad Luck and the Things We Do Just in Case
Plenty of superstitions are built around luck. Some promise to attract it, while others tell you how to avoid losing it. This is why people cross their fingers, keep particular objects close, knock on wood or refuse to begin something important on the wrong date.
Bad-luck superstitions are particularly difficult to leave behind because avoiding them is often easy. Walking around a ladder takes a few seconds. Throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder costs almost nothing. Even when you don’t genuinely believe anything will happen, ignoring the rule can feel like tempting fate for no reason.
Lucky rituals work from the other direction. You wear the same shirt to watch an important game, carry something that belonged to a person you love or repeat the routine you followed before an earlier success. The object didn’t create the result, but it becomes attached to how you felt when things went well.
Numbers are especially good at collecting these meanings. Some are treated as fortunate, sacred or complete, while others become tied to danger and misfortune. You can explore their wider cultural, symbolic and numerological associations in our collection of number meanings.
The Same Sign Doesn’t Mean the Same Thing Everywhere
It’s easy to grow up with a superstition and assume everyone knows it. Then you meet someone who has never heard the warning, follows the rule in reverse or connects it with a completely different outcome.
A number avoided in one country can be chosen for important dates somewhere else. Colours associated with celebration in one tradition can be used for mourning in another. Even the direction a lucky horseshoe should face causes disagreement. Some people hang it with the ends pointing upwards so the luck cannot fall out, while others turn it downwards so the luck pours over anyone who passes underneath.
The Smithsonian’s comparison of superstitions across cultures shows how meanings involving numbers, dates and clothing can change when you move between languages and places.
Those differences tell us these ideas weren’t discovered as one universal set of rules. They grew inside particular families, religions, occupations and communities. That’s why our individual guides don’t give you one dramatic meaning and pretend it applies everywhere.
How Old Are Superstitions and Omens?
People have been searching for signs in unexpected events for thousands of years. In ancient Mesopotamia, reading omens wasn’t treated as a casual interest. Specialists examined the sky, unusual births, animal behaviour and the organs of sacrificed animals before important decisions were made.
The British Museum holds a clay model of a sheep’s liver inscribed with omens. The model was probably used to teach students how a blemish appearing in a particular area of the organ should be interpreted.
That object shows how organised divination could become, but it doesn’t mean every superstition we know today came from Mesopotamia. Most familiar household beliefs are much harder to trace because they travelled through conversations and family habits long before anyone wrote them down.
The Library of Congress preserves an 1896 collection of New England signs, sayings and superstitions. It records warnings about weather, animals, dreams, marriage, death and ordinary household tasks, but even a book that old cannot tell us exactly when every belief began.
A written record proves that somebody knew the superstition by that point. It doesn’t automatically prove the collector found its original meaning, especially when the belief had already been passed between several generations and places.
This is where many popular origin stories go wrong. A tidy explanation gets repeated so often that it begins being presented as fact, even when nobody can find an early source to support it. When the evidence runs out, we’ll say so. The uncertainty is part of the history rather than an empty space that needs to be filled with a convincing story.
Why Are Superstitions So Hard to Leave Behind?
You don’t have to think of yourself as superstitious to have a lucky object or a ritual you prefer not to skip. Athletes repeat routines before a game, performers develop habits before going onstage and people who insist they don’t believe in luck can still feel uneasy about saying something too confidently.
These rituals become especially appealing when the outcome matters but you cannot completely control it. You can practise for an interview, prepare for an exam or do everything possible to help someone you care about, but there’s always a point where the result moves out of your hands.
A ritual gives you something to do with that uncertainty. Psychologist Stuart Vyse discusses this need for control in an interview with the American Psychological Association about the psychology of superstition. The action can make you feel calmer or more prepared even though it doesn’t control the outside event.
Memory helps the belief along. If you wear a particular bracelet and have an unusually good day, the connection is easy to remember. All the ordinary days when you wore it and nothing important happened disappear into the background. Before long, the bracelet has a reputation.
Does Believing in a Superstition Make It True?
There’s no reliable evidence that breaking a mirror controls the next seven years of your life, that spilled salt causes an argument or that walking beneath a ladder changes your luck.
That doesn’t mean the belief has no effect on how you feel. If you’re expecting something bad to happen, every awkward conversation, unexpected bill or minor setback can start looking like confirmation. The normal days between those events don’t receive the same attention because they don’t fit the warning.
A lucky belief can influence you in a different way. Carrying something familiar might help you feel calmer and more confident, which can change how you handle a stressful situation. The object hasn’t altered the future, but the reassurance you feel is real.
You’re allowed to enjoy a tradition without reorganising your life around it. You can knock on wood because your family always did, carry something that reminds you of a person you love or look into an omen because the timing caught your attention.
Folklore can help you explore what an event has meant to other people without forcing you to accept that one ordinary moment has decided what happens next.
More Omens and Lucky Beliefs Are Coming
The omen side of this collection will grow to include birds entering the home, magpies, ringing ears, itching palms, twitching eyes and the difference between an omen, sign and coincidence. We’ll also explore lucky objects such as horseshoes, four-leaf clovers, wishbones and found coins.
Each new guide will look at where the belief appears, how its meaning changes and what we actually know about its history. Until those pages are ready, they won’t be linked here, so you won’t be sent to an unfinished or missing page.
The Stories We Still Carry
Most superstitions survive because someone keeps repeating them. A warning from a grandparent becomes something you tell your own children. A habit picked up before an exam follows you into job interviews and important appointments. Long after the first explanation has been forgotten, the feeling stays.
That’s what makes these beliefs worth exploring. They tell us what people hoped for, what frightened them and how they tried to feel less helpless when life refused to give them a clear answer.
You don’t have to believe every sign controls the future to understand why someone once did, or why a small part of you still hesitates before taking the chance.