Bad and Good Luck in Newfoundland

Umm, I feel that maybe I need to do a double post today. I did miss a few at the month's start so, yeah, that's it. Has nothing to do with being superstitious...nope.

Bad Luck
- coiling a rope against the sun
- buying a broom in May
- red-haired women (sigh...)
- black cats
- solitary crows (one for sorrow)
- whistling while floating on water

Death
- augured by banshees and broken clocks striking the hour
- heralded by a glaring cat that looks you in the eye (I guess my cat's are out to get me!)

Taboos 
- stepping over a child

And beware the terrible power of a widow's curse; ; little carts drawn by horses at a brisk pace; and trapped dead hares on sale in the streets.

Good Luck
 - horseshoes (often still found in the walls of older houses)
 - two black crows (two for joy)
 - clothes inside out (remember my post about fooling the fairies with bread in your pocket, well wearing clothes inside out is supposed to confuse anything wishing you ill)
 - finding a pin or a white button
 - a rooster sounding off on your doorstep
 - bees blundering into the room

Excerpt from My Newfoundland: The Sensations of Landing on the Island Long Ago Haunted a Writer's Final Memories by Paul Noden West (1930 - 2015). Newfoundland Quarterly;Volume 109, Number 4, 2017

The luck o' the spider to you!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

As you might know, my Mom and I like shopping at estate sales. It was nice to find one during this long, cold winter. They're mostly held in the spring around here. The previous owner of the house had a large collection of old photos and postcards. Old postcards and jewelry are my two favorite things to look for at estate sales. This was my postcard find of the day:

It's always a fun little treat to find a postcard that was written on and stamped. Then you can see how old the postcard is. This one was stamped 1909 over a one cent stamp.

I looked up the name "Edd Meyer" on a genealogy site and was surprised to find two guys with this name who were alive and in the area at this time. I'd like to be sure of which one he was, because it's fun to know the story of the person who owned an antique.

I was curious about the symbolism of the spider on this postcard. I assumed it was supposed to represent something lucky since it was pictured above a treasure chest that was surrounded by four leaf clovers. So I did a little research and found this page:

Spider Superstitions:

http://www.spiderzrule.com/superstitions.htm 

Who would think there would be this many spider superstitions? As it turns out, the spider on the postcard is lucky because it's brown. Every culture seems to have different spider rules. A few things everyone seems to agree on: brown spiders are good and the later in the day you see one, the better.

Funny enough, a few days after learning this trivia, I saw a brown spider crawl across the ceiling around 9:00 PM. The following few nights I saw a brown spider at 11:00 PM and Midnight. Either there were a few lucky spiders or that one spider really gets around. I guess I have some good luck coming my way!

St. Patrick's Day seems the perfect time to share one of my new favorite YouTube channels! Adrian von Ziegler is a composer who posts lots of Celtic music videos as well as other relaxing, magical sounding songs. His two hour set of Celtic music is perfect for today:



I hope you all see a lucky spider tonight!