Not superstitious and not not superstitious but a third secret thing (read a lot of fairytales as a child and doesn't believe them but also would never be rude to a mountain while still on it just in case)
I've said it before but this is both the Icelandic and the Irish approach:
Of course we're modern educated people who don't believe in fairies
But we're also not gonna fuck with 'em, we're not idiots
There's a phenomena in research labs called the "pigeon dance" (which I cannot find any internet sources to back me up at the moment, so just go with me) after B.F. Skinner's pigeon experiments in the 1940's. In the experiments, food was dispersed randomly (i.e. not when a button was pushed) and the pigeons learned/made up a whole dance routine so that they would get fed. Hence, the pigeon dance. In research labs this is used to describe a set of behaviors that may vary from lab to lab - does everyone touch the grounding bar, open the doors, stomp four times on the sticky mat to de-dust their shoes, and then touch the second grounding bar before starting an experiment? OK. When you tried to replicate it, did you do that? (What do you mean I didn't write up grounding procedure in my publication, *of course* everyone stomps four times on the mat.) And maybe it's scientifically necessary, maybe it's just a pigeon dance, and maybe it appeases the fairies.
Unfortunately the pigeon dance is literally called "superstitious behavior" by behaviorist folks.
