Unlucky Actions.—It is unlucky to wind black thread at night. A vicious wish made to one another by women quarrelling, in olden times, was, “The disease of women who wind black thread at night be upon you!” Some say the reason of the evil omen is, that black thread is apt to disappear at night, or be taken by the Fairies, and be found through the house next morning. Superstition probably assigned some more occult reason.
Unlucky Actions.—It is unlucky to wind black thread at night. A vicious wish made to one another by women quarrelling, in olden times, was, “The disease of women who wind black thread at night be upon you!” Some say the reason of the evil omen is, that black thread is apt to disappear at night, or be taken by the Fairies, and be found through the house next morning. Superstition probably assigned some more occult reason.
It is ‘little happiness’ for anyone to kill a magpie or a bat.
It is unlucky for a person on a journey to return the way he went. This belief had its origin in the instructions given to the ‘man of God,’ who rebuked the idolatry of Jeroboam. “Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest” (I Kings xiii. 9).