#superstition

[leaslichoma]

Apparently in China peach wood (Along with the rest of the plant) is believed to have properties that repel evil spirits, a little similar to silver in European legends or iron for both European fae and West Asian/Middle eastern Jinn. Taoists sometimes keep swords made of peach wood because of this. This made me realize something. If you took a peach wood stick, and attached studs to it of both silver and iron you'd end up with a club or staff (or mace, flail etc.) that would have the weaknesses of many kinds of supernatural creatures while still retaining effectiveness as a normal weapon (peach is a hardwood and silver's poor edge retention doesn't matter for studs). You could even keep adding new stud materials to get something ridiculous that affects over 120 catalogued folkloric monsters. Since you just need a few little studs you could even get some really expensive materials like meteoric iron (a thumb tip sized meteorite can still cost like 10-20 bucks I think). I could somewhat feasibly make a weapon that affects every monster ever thought to walk the earth, from vampires and werewolves to jinn and jiangshi and even mankind.

[ross-hollander]

The fact is that...

...every hangar and maintenance shop and so on has its own absurd rituals; it's just that every single hangar thinks that theirs are perfectly normal.

It's perfectly fine for our maintenance crews to mark a designated "screaming zone" outside the hangar for frustrated technicians to vent their anger into the atmosphere, with off-duty crews holding up signs to show their rating of the outburst like gymnastics judges, but if the workers two bays down have a whiteboard up with a standing tally of ghost sightings, or a taboo under pain of buying ice cream sandwiches for everyone from the base commissary of ever uttering the phrase "good as new", or a large, malformed but vaguely humanoid figure made of wreck bits called "Our Lady of Scrap Metal" to whom a sandwich must be sacrificed every new moon, well, that's just plain absurd, and frankly makes you doubt their degree of professionalism.

[stuffaboutminneapolis]

Magician Russell Swann, appearing at the Radisson Hotel, opens an umbrella inside, stands under a ladder, pours salt on the ground, and breaks a mirror in front of a black cat on Friday the 13th while his assistant, June Holden, looks on in horror. The cat's name is Friday and was won as a bridge game booby prize last May 13th (a Friday). (1950) via Hennepin County Library

[songbird-duchess]

Beliefs around crafting

Sometimes when I sit and I knit I hear my older cousin’s voice in my ear warning me not to pull too tight. The yarn can feel I’m nervous and whatever I’m making will fall apart if I knit while nervous. You have to knit with calm confidence or you doom your project.

Sometimes when I’m sewing I feel my aunt’s hands guiding mine and telling me to remember to thank my thread because this thread has gone through so much to become the thread that holds my project together. And you need to thank the things that hold you together.

Sometimes when I’m embroidering I remember my mamaw’s warning about how you always embroider the eyes last if you’re embroidering an animal or person. The eyes bring the piece to life and once you stitch them they can feel. And being stabbed with a needle over and over is very unpleasant.

Sometimes when I’m braiding my hair or a cord or a length of dandelion for a crown I remember the old whispers I grew up with: don’t think bad thoughts while you braid, you’ll braid a curse into your hair and you’ll have to wash it thrice to get it out.

We had beliefs about baking, cooking, cleaning, sewing, weaving, singing, dancing, playing, joking. Every craft and skill the people in my family taught me came with a lesson or a warning.

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Idk why I’m posting this. Been missing my family a lot lately, most of these women have passed. I guess I just needed to speak their wisdom into something. Has anyone else heard these?

[todays-xkcd]

It's important to teach yourself to feel responsible for random events, because with great responsibility comes great power. That's what my wise Uncle Ben told me right before he died; he might still be alive today if only I'd said rabbit rabbit that year!

Superstition [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Blondie, Cueball and a child (Hairy) are walking from left to right. The child is turning towards Cueball.]

Cueball: Oops, I forgot to say "rabbit rabbit" on January first! Hairy: Why do you do that? Cueball: Just a superstition. Hairy: What's a superstition? Cueball: It's a way to train yourself to feel like any bad thing that happens is your fault.

[terrorignitis]

Michelangelo Antonioni | short film | “Superstizione”

[witchrealms]

(x)

[charnel-grounds]

Skeleton of the Witch Ursula Kemp (c. 1525–1582) : “spikes had been driven through her body to hold her down in the grave, and to prevent her from haunting the parish.”

from ‘Supernatural in Cornwall’ by Michael Williams 1979

source