Superstitions are beliefs that a sign or an action brings luck or harm. We dated all 45 here by their first written record: the oldest, the evil eye, goes back to c. 3000 BC, and 3 first appear in the 20th century — theater superstitions, exam superstitions and sports superstitions.
27 of the 45 dated beliefs were already written down before AD 500; only 3 are 20th-century.
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Tradition. Money coming in — in most of Europe and North America. In parts of India and the Caribbean the sides are reversed.
Actually. Dry skin, eczema or contact irritation. Persistent itching without visible cause is worth mentioning to a doctor.
Tradition. Money going out. The mirror of the right, and equally regional.
Actually. Same as the right. Palms itch because skin is skin.
Tradition. Someone is talking about you — right ear praise, left ear criticism. Recorded by Pliny in the first century.
Actually. Tinnitus. Common, usually benign, but sudden onset in one ear warrants medical attention.
Tradition. Varies wildly by culture — good news, bad news, or a visitor, depending where you are.
Actually. Myokymia, almost always caused by fatigue, caffeine or stress. It resolves on its own.
Tradition. Someone thinking of you. The blessing after a sneeze survives from a belief that the soul briefly left the body.
Actually. Irritation of the nasal lining. The soul is fine.
Tradition. Someone is talking about you, and they will stop when you name the right person.
Actually. Diaphragm spasm. Hiccups lasting over 48 hours are considered persistent and should be looked at.
Tradition. Bad luck in North America and much of continental Europe; good luck in Britain, Ireland and Japan. The split traces to medieval witch panic in some regions and not others.
Actually. A cat crossed the road. Some recent shelter studies find black cats take longer to be adopted, though the evidence is mixed and the likely cause is how they photograph, not the luck belief itself.
Tradition. Seven years of bad luck — usually traced to Rome, on the story that mirrors held a piece of the soul and life renewed on a seven-year cycle.
Actually. Mirrors were extremely expensive until the nineteenth century. A superstition that made servants careful with them had obvious utility.
Tradition. Bad luck, averted by throwing a pinch over the left shoulder into the devil's face.
Actually. Salt was valuable enough to give us a word: 'salary' comes from Latin salarium, related to sal, salt. Wasting it was genuinely costly.
Itching, ringing and twitching are involuntary, noticeable and have no obvious cause — exactly the conditions under which people generate explanations. Almost every culture has readings for them, and the readings often contradict each other across a single border, which tells you what they are worth as predictions.
What is striking is how many map onto money and gossip: the two things people most want advance warning about.
Every superstition here carries a first-recorded date — the earliest point it appears in a written source. That is not the same as its origin: an unrecorded practice can be centuries older than its first mention, and we say so rather than guessing backwards.
What the dates do show is which beliefs are younger than their reputation. Friday the 13th has no source before the 19th century and entered popular culture through a 1907 novel. The bridal rhyme was first printed in 1871, and its 'something old' only appears in 1876. 'Break a leg' is first clearly recorded in the theater in 1939. The opal curse traces back to a single book, Walter Scott's novel of 1829, after which European opal sales reportedly halved.
Others are exactly as old as claimed. The evil eye appears in Sumerian tablets from around 3000 BC and turns up again in Greek, Roman, Jewish and Islamic sources. Body omens — itching, sneezing, ringing ears — are recorded by Pliny in the first century and have barely changed since.
The pattern worth noticing: beliefs about the body are old, beliefs about ceremonies are usually Victorian, and beliefs about performance — exams and sport — are twentieth century, because mass schooling and professional sport are. Gambling is the exception: its luck rituals go back to antiquity, and only the casino rules are new.
AstroHot. “Superstitions and Body Omens Explained.” Accessed October 29, 2026. https://astrohot.com/superstitions/
{{cite web |title=Superstitions and Body Omens Explained |url=https://astrohot.com/superstitions/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-29}}
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