Rabbit, rabbit

Today is the first day of my birth month.  It's now three am and I'm awake. Having coaxed our cats out of the bedroom so they won't be nagging me to feed them (something they do no matter when I stir from sleep), I became curious about the tradition of saying "Rabbit, rabbit" as one's first words on the first day of the month. Check here and you'll have more information than you might ever care to have about it.

Curious, our superstitions and the ways we try to mitigate things through words and actions.  I'm resisting the urge to ask the omniscient Google to cough up information on:

  • breaking a mirror = seven years bad luck.  Perhaps if you stepped on it or embedded a portion in your body.
  • tossing salt over one's (right,left?) shoulder to counter possible bad luck.  Was it because salt was spilled?  If so, isn't tossing just a controlled spill?
  • walking under a ladder.  I can think of several reasons that might be trouble.
  • stepping on cracks in the sidewalk = breaking your mother's back?  That has me totally baffled.
  • etc, etc.
 I leave it up to you to satisfy your curiosity, if you have way too much free time.  


My first exposure to "Rabbit, rabbit" was through my wife, Carol, and my step-daughters, Laura and Wanda.  Curious also that a tradition apparently quite widespread in english speaking countries, never made it into the lexicon of my large extended family.   Maybe because it is a positive superstition, a way to assure good luck rather than a harbinger of bad luck.  All the superstitions I can recall in my family, the list above plus endless others, were negative - don'ts rather than do's - which I guess says something about how I was raised.  


Enough babbling.  I've managed to ramble for forty-five minutes and it's time to see if I can get a few more hours rest before the day begins.  

Comments

  1. In England, they say "white rabbits." Can't tell you why though.

    ReplyDelete

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