What people say
Cover mirrors, stop the clocks, never carry the body head-first.Ceremony · 950 searches a month
Funeral superstitions
Cover mirrors, stop the clocks, never carry the body head-first.
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
Antiquity; mirror covering documented from the 1800s
That makes it
about 226 years old
Rank by age
27 oldest of 40 dated here
Category
Ceremony
Searched
950 a month
Covering mirrors, stopping clocks and carrying the coffin feet-first all address the same fear: that the dead might not leave, or might take someone with them. The mirror rule connects to the older belief that a reflection holds part of the soul.
What is going on
These rules do real work for the living — they give people something to do in the hours when there is nothing to be done.Where it applies. Jewish, Irish, Slavic and Southern US traditions share the mirror rule independently.
Other ceremony superstitions
Recorded around the same time
Funeral superstitions is the 27th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →