Do you avoid anything connected with the number thirteen, think it lucky when a black cat crosses your path and unlucky to see the new moon through glass? Belief in superstitions links us with a time when everyday events and objects had magical significance. A treasure trove of fascinating information, A dictionary of Omens and Superstitions reveals the secrets of hundreds of ancient traditions. Do you know: What it means if a cat sits and washes itself in your doorway? Why women should have their hair cut only when the moon is waxing? Why people in Yorkshire throw caterpillars over their shoulders? What it means if you mistakenly recognize a perfect stranger as someone you know? Why Thursdays are the unluckiest days in Germany and 28 December ill-fated throughout Europe? And why it is universally believed unlucky to walk under ladders?
Does it seem like you're jinxed -- that someone has put the double whammy on you? Fear no more. Good luck is just around the corner. Here are dozens of superstitions and omens and rituals to break them. Includes such popular superstitions as: signs of good or bad luck; superstitions concerning children; howling of dogs; charms and amulets; black cats; drinking toasts; signs of approach bad health and death; superstitions involving card playing and gambling; birth days; evil eye removal; unwanted visitors; precious stones; colours.
Strange beliefs and even stranger omens have liferated through the ages. Here is a ripe collection which might change minds about broken mirrors, black cats and other ingrained beliefs.
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
"If you've ever wanted the definitive answers on subjects such as black cats and white heather, look no further than this classic dictionary. Entries are illustrated by quotations that trace their development through the centuries. A work of reference for anyone with an interest in superstitions and their history." "Entries give real examples of usage, illustrating the meaning, history, and origin of superstitions. Subjects covered include spells, cures, rituals, taboos, charms, and omens. The dictionary is fully cross-referenced for easy browsing."--BOOK JACKET.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Otherworld series and Hemlock Island, the first chilling novel in the Cainsville series. Olivia Taylor-Jones is shattered to learn that she’s adopted. Her biological parents? Notorious serial killers. On a quest to learn more about her past, Olivia lands in the small town of Cainsville, Illinois. As she draws on long-hidden abilities, Olivia begins to realize that there are dark secrets in Cainsville—and powers lurking in the shadows.
Superstitions are commonplace in the modern world. Mostly, however, they evoke innocuous images of people reading their horoscopes or avoiding black cats. Certain religious practices might also come to mind—praying to St. Christopher or lighting candles for the dead. Benign as they might seem today, such practices were not always perceived that way. In medieval Europe superstitions were considered serious offenses, violations of essential precepts of Christian doctrine or immutable natural laws. But how and why did this come to be? In Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies, Michael D. Bailey explores the thorny concept of superstition as it was understood and debated in the Middle Ages. Bailey begins by tracing Christian thinking about superstition from the patristic period through the early and high Middle Ages. He then turns to the later Middle Ages, a period that witnessed an outpouring of writings devoted to superstition—tracts and treatises with titles such as De superstitionibus and Contra vitia superstitionum. Most were written by theologians and other academics based in Europe’s universities and courts, men who were increasingly anxious about the proliferation of suspect beliefs and practices, from elite ritual magic to common healing charms, from astrological divination to the observance of signs and omens. As Bailey shows, however, authorities were far more sophisticated in their reasoning than one might suspect, using accusations of superstition in a calculated way to control the boundaries of legitimate religion and acceptable science. This in turn would lay the conceptual groundwork for future discussions of religion, science, and magic in the early modern world. Indeed, by revealing the extent to which early modern thinkers took up old questions about the operation of natural properties and forces using the vocabulary of science rather than of belief, Bailey exposes the powerful but in many ways false dichotomy between the "superstitious" Middle Ages and "rational" European modernity.
In this fully updated edition of Believing in Magic, renowned superstition expert Stuart Vyse investigates our tendency towards these irrational beliefs.
