Are You Superstitious?

by Maureen Bonatch

Children are often more apt to accept the unbelievable and look for the magic in the world. As they grow older, most become more practical and only believe what can be rationally explained.

Although many adults still hold onto beliefs, or superstitions, to try to gain a little luck, or ward off bad luck. Superstitions are a widely held but unjustified belief that something supernatural is responsible for certain consequences of an action. In other words, if we can’t make sense of it, then we might make up the reason why something occurred.

These beliefs might bring some comfort, such as believing something gives them luck to help increase confidence in a positive outcome or unknown future event. Many of us may even make up our own superstitions such as having a lucky shirt or other item.

A few beliefs of lucky charms that I’m familiar with include:

• Believing a rabbits foot holds luck
• Crossing your fingers
• Find a penny pick it up (all the rest of the day good luck)
• Getting the larger piece of a broken turkey bone to grant luck or a wish

Other actions or beliefs of bad luck might increase your unease for no validated reason and can include:

• Bad luck comes in threes
• A black cat crossing your path
• Breaking a mirror brings 7 years of bad luck
• Knocking on wood to ward off bad luck
• Opening an umbrella inside brings bad luck

I’m currently working on a short story to be released with thirteen other authors on Friday the 13^th. Some people fear Friday the 13^th. They might be referred to as friggatriskaidekaphobics. 

My story,“Till Death”,  will be a little different than my other stories in that it’s a dark suspense, with no paranormal. Not having paranormal elements was really a challenge for me. It seems that I have trouble giving up looking for a little bit of magic in my characters.

My main character in Till Death is very superstitious. In researching the story I’ve come across some other unusual superstitions including:

• Mirrors don’t just reflect image, they hold bits of your soul
• Facing mirrors open a door for the devil
• Don’t go right home after the funeral or the spirit may have tagged along
• Whistling indoors summons demons
• If you see or hear an owl, terrible news is coming
• An owl in your house brings death
• A full moon is associated with chaos
• A person with 13 letters in their name is cursed

Perhaps if you’re just a little superstitious, you might still believe there's still a little magic left in the world.

Are You Feeling Lucky?

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Do You Have Any Superstitions?

Author Bio: Maureen Bonatch grew up in small town Pennsylvania and her love of the four seasons—hockey, biking, sweat pants and hibernation—keeps her there. While immersed in writing or reading paranormal romance and fantasy, she survives on caffeine, wine, music, and laughter. A feisty Shih Tzu keeps her in line. Find Maureen on her website, Facebook & Twitter

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WISHBONES - A History of Lore and Luck

Thanksgiving is coming up fast, and many families will choose a turkey as the center of their holiday feast. And after dinner comes the well-known tradition of breaking the wishbone.

But what IS a wishbone? And why on earth would we want to break one?

First of all, you won’t find one in humans. We have two separate collarbones. But a bird’s collarbones are fused into a single Y-shaped bone known as the furcula, or “little fork” in Latin. The collarbones of bipedal dinosaurs like the T-Rex and the Velociraptor were also fused into one. In fact, the presence of a furcula was one of the clues that helped us figure out that modern-day birds—especially chickens and turkeys—are the closest relatives to many dinosaurs.

Two hundred and fifteen million years ago, there weren’t any humans around to make wishes on giant dinosaur furculas. But fast forward to around 700 BC, when the ancient Etruscans lived in what is now Italy. They believed that in addition to tasting good, chickens had a mystical connection to the future that bordered on the sacred. After dinner, the furcula was carefully separated out and dried in the sun. After three days, it would be retired to a safer place in the home. Family and friends would run their fingers over the bone while asking it for favors.

You might have noticed that the Etruscans did not break the bone. That little flourish was added by the Romans when they conquered the Etruscans and adopted the furcula tradition. No more could a bone be wished upon by more than one person! Competitors would each crook a finger around a leg of the wishbone and pull. Then as now, whoever got the bigger piece was said to have their wish granted.

The practice of making wishes on a furcula found its way across Europe to Britain. Chickens seemed to decline in popularity for a time, and the bones of geese and partridge were substituted. The birds may have changed, but the ability to divine the future was still attributed to their bones. Writings from 1455 show that geese eaten on St. Martin’s Night (November 11th) were used to predict the severity of the winter. Their breastbones, with wishbones carefully left attached, were dried overnight and examined by the oldest and wisest person available. Armies actually planned their campaigns based solely on the thickness of a goose’s wishbone!

By the 1500s, the furcula custom acquired more rules. Each person would balance the wishbone on their nose like a pair of spectacles and make their wish beforehand. But the game wasn’t necessarily over after the traditional breaking. The winner would often secrete their portion of the bone in one of their outstretched fists, and ask the loser to choose. If the loser picked the hand that held the bone, they could also have their wish come true.

Written records from 1598 show that the wishbone was most often called a merrythought, and whoever won the break would be the first to marry. Among bachelors, the meaning was often a little more carnal – whoever won would be the first into the marriage bed. Small wonder that the breaking of the wishbone was frequently associated with the loss of virginity!

The tradition of the wishbone traveled to the American colonies from England. And America had an abundance of turkeys, which meant bigger wishbones. 

No matter which bird was used in the USA, its Y-shaped bone acquired more folklore. In 1890, it was recorded in Adams County, Illinois, that both the winner and the loser of a wishbone pull would hang their portion over their doorway like mistletoe. The first man or woman through the door was predicted to be the future husband or wife of the wishbone owner.

The 1910 Edition of the American Poultry Journal affirmed that using chicken wishbones to foretell a spouse was a widespread tradition. A variation on the custom was that the first single woman who walked under a wishbone after it was hung would marry soon. Women who were already married might hang a wishbone over the door in order to conceive a child, or in some cases carry a wishbone in their apron pocket.

Victorian jewelry was often designed around good luck charms, and wishbones were as popular as horseshoes and clovers on pendants, pins and brooches. It was about this time that the classic V-shaped wedding ring emerged. Its shape was a streamlined version of a wishbone, and was immediately popular because of the wishbone's association with true love.

By 1900, the wishbone was appearing regularly in postcards and greeting cards for every occasion.

Surprisingly, despite the lengthy history surrounding the humble furcula, the first known use of the word wishbone wasn't until 1847 in the USA. That's according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms included the word in its third edition in 1859.  It’s also thought that the term “lucky break” might have come from wishbone pulling.

But whatever the word, whatever the occasion, and whatever the bird, remember this:  The next time you pluck a wishbone, you’re holding nearly three thousand years of tradition in your hands!

Oh, and don't forget to impress your relatives with the word furcula...

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THE GRIM SERIES by Dani Harper

The fae are cunning, powerful and often cruel. The most beautiful among them are often the most deadly. Hidden far beneath the mortal world, the timeless faery realm plays by its own rules—and those rules can change on a whim. Now and again, the unpredictable residents of that mystical land cross the supernatural threshold…

In this enchanting romance series from Dani Harper, the ancient fae come face-to-face with modern-day humans and discover something far more potent than their strongest magic: love.

See ALL Dani's novels on her Amazon Author Page

Sirens and Mermaids - Beautiful but Deadly

Sea Goddess mural in Monteray, California
Image: Bigstock.com

A new TV series, SIREN, premiered in March of this year and by May it was signed for a second season. With it comes renewed interest in sirens and mermaids, two legendary sea creatures who have merged into one over the centuries. 

In modern times we think of sirens as glamorous women who captivate men with their beauty, or deliberately lure and seduce them into forgetting their own better judgement. The term "siren" comes to us from Greek mythology and literature, in which the Sirens were once handmaidens to Persephone, daughter of the goddess Demeter. When Persephone was kidnapped and taken to the underworld to marry the dark god Hades, Demeter blamed her handmaidens for allowing this to happen to their mistress.

As punishment, Demeter marooned the hapless women on a beautiful green island surrounded by treacherous rocks. Any ship that ventured too close to the island would be wrecked so that rescue was impossible. However, merely banishing the women wasn't enough for the vengeful goddess. The women were changed into strange half-human creatures. Still alluringly beautiful, they are sometimes portrayed with bird wings and feet. However, in many versions of the story, they became the first mermaids. While we usually picture them as possessing the head and upper body of a lovely woman and the lower body of a fish or a dolphin, there are some legends where mermaids have legs and appear human.

Demeter gave these unfortunate women unearthly voices and commanded them to sing without ceasing. Sailors in passing ships would hear the sirens' song, and either steer the vessel onto the rocks, or dive from the deck into the sea and drown. Any man that managed to survive the ocean and the rocks would make his way to the island, but find it far from a paradise. So enchanted was he by the siren's songs that he would follow the women wherever they went, forgetting everything else in the world. The hapless sailor would even forget to eat and eventually starve to death. The island became covered with bleached bones.

The Sirenuse Islands in the Mediterranean Sea
Image: Bigstock.com

Embittered by their unfair fate, the Sirens eventually took great pleasure in their cruel task of luring men to their doom. Stories tell that they would often sing passing sailors into a deep sleep. The sirens would then board the ship and kill all the men as they slept, feasting on them for days afterward and tossing their gnawed bones into the ocean—or making musical instruments from them!

The only man to hear the song of the Sirens and live to tell about it was Odysseus (also known as Ulysses). He filled the ears of his men with wax and bound their heads with cloth, so that they would be able to row directly past the deadly island, unaffected by the alluring music. Odysseus himself, however, had not plugged his ears. Instead, he commanded his men to tie him to the mast, so he could hear the Sirens' songs, but not be able to jump overboard or steer the ship into danger.

Demeter's magic had condemned the Sirens to live forever—but only until the day came that a mortal was finally able to resist them. After Odysseus's successful plan, the Sirens were said to have flung themselves into the sea which turned against them and drowned them.

Ever since, maritime superstition claimed that hearing the song of a mermaid is a sign of a particularly ferocious storm approaching, or even spelled certain disaster for the ship.

Mermaids are found in the mythology of many countries, including China, Cambodia, Thailand, Africa, the Phillipines, the Caribbean, Brazil and Japan. They are called merrows in Ireland, and rusalkas in eastern Europe. Undines are freshwater mermaids from Celtic legends, which live in the faery realms of my Grim Series novels. In some myths, the mermaids are kind, even benevolent. In a few stories, a mermaid even falls in love with a human (Hans Christian Anderson’s 1837 tale, “The Little Mermaid, was based on such folklore). Unfortunately, most of these sea creatures behave like the Greek sirens, luring men to their doom, drowning them, and even eating them!

Female figureheads ensured fair weather
Image: Bigstock.com

Christopher Columbus wrote of sighting mermaids on three occasions, noting that they weren't as beautiful as the legends claimed. It's generally accepted that what he actually saw were manatees. However, the infamous pirate Blackbeard also noted in his ship's log several times that he had witnessed mer-folk, and instructed his crew to steer clear of the areas they frequented. And in more modern times, from 1870 to 1967, both sailors and ship's passengers have reported seeing mermaids in the waters off British Columbia, Canada!

Strangely, despite all the ancient tales of dangerous sirens and mermaids (and later, the notion that women on board were just plain bad luck), there was a prevailing belief for at least two thousand years that the sight of a woman's bosom could settle an angry ocean.

By the 1800s, most sailing ships featured an amply-endowed female figurehead on the bow, often with breasts exposed to the salt sea air. And the most popular of all? A mermaid!

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THE GRIM SERIES by Dani Harper

The fae are cunning, powerful and often cruel. The most beautiful among them are often the most deadly. Hidden far beneath the mortal world, the timeless faery realm plays by its own rules—and those rules can change on a whim. Now and again, the unpredictable residents of that mystical land cross the supernatural threshold…

In this enchanting romance series from Dani Harper, the ancient fae come face-to-face with modern-day humans and discover something far more potent than their strongest magic: love.

See ALL Dani's novels on her Amazon Author Page