I keep a few books on my bedside table. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, The Encyclopedia of Fairies, Georgette Heyer’s Regency World, and the Oxford Dictionary of Superstitions to name several. They’re thick books and great for dipping into at 3 o’clock in the morning when the baby has woken me up for some strange reason apparent only to herself. Perhaps she’s like a cat and can see ghosts and atmospheric disturbance. I don’t know.
Anyway I read snippets from them during the in-between times of my day, of which there are many. It’s the long uninterrupted stretches of time that I lack.
So I was perusing the dictionary of superstitions which is arranged alphabetically and contains all kinds of helpful information. Case in point: you should always crush your egg shell after you eat your hard-boiled or soft-boiled egg otherwise witches and fairies use them as ships and get into all kinds of evil mischief. Or this one about excrement which informs us that if a dog makes a mess in your doorway you will be very lucky.
Good to know. And according to the experts it is bad luck to wipe it off your shoe.
My new favorite however is the following and I will quote it in full and in Olde English too:
They whose heaire of the eye browes doo touch or meete together, of all other are the worst. They doo shewe that he or she is a wicked personne, and an intyser of seruantes (servants), and geuen (given) to unlawfull and naughty artes.
And:When the hair of the eyebrows meets over the bridge of the nose the person will certainly be hanged.
And of course,
Trust not the man whose eyebrows meet, for in his heart you’ll find deceit.
I always knew there was something.
By the way, lest you of the mono brow try to conceal it with make-up, waxing or depilatories, I am informed the bad luck will remain. Tough cookies.
On a different note, here’s one picked at random concerning Frogs:
An old man and his sister told me that they once knew of a frog being hung up in a chimney in a bladder as a cure for some complaint. The scratchings and noise made by the poor frog were awful, they said; but the man recovered. See!
I enjoy these little tidbits so much that I will continue to post them.
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