Origins of Common Travel Superstitions

Thrillist has compiled a list of some of the most common travel superstitions. Are any familiar to you?

The Surprising Origins of Americans' Most Common Travel Superstitions

Traveling can be scary. It's easy to spiral about how planes even fly and how many germs percolate on your hotel nightstand. But these travel fears, born out of real but statistically unlikely horrors, aren't the thoughts guiding some of the most common travel superstitions. In fact, most of the travel superstitions we carry today in the US come from beliefs or fears you might not even be aware of.

YouGov surveyed 1,000 US adults about some of the top superstitions they believed in, including things like throwing salt over your shoulder, carrying a rabbit's foot, and walking under a ladder. While Americans are more likely to believe in superstitions rooted in good luck, the top travel-related superstitions are linked to bad luck. Using YouGov's data and forums like Reddit and Quora, Thrillist compiled a list of travel superstitions that shape our travels and how they started.

1. Avoiding the number 13

At many hotels, you'll notice that the elevator will list the 12th and 14th floors but not the 13th floor. In plenty of airplanes, there won't be a 13th row of seats; the rows will jump from the 12th to the 14th row. Many people also choose not to fly on the 13th. This anxiety around the unlucky number even has a name: triskaidekaphobia. The root cause of the number 13 being unlucky in the Western world is debated. Some scholars link it back to Judas being the 13th guest at the Last Supper, while others point to Loki, the god of death, being the 13th guest at a meal in Norse mythology. However, with 13% of Americans believing the 13th floor is bad luck and 19% of Americans believing Friday the 13th is bad luck, there's enough of a client base that hotels and airlines often find it worth omitting the number 13.

2. Touching the plane before a flight

While avoiding the 13th row or Friday the 13th can be a way to prevent bad luck, many people believe that touching the outside of the plane before the light can help guarantee safe passage. While the origins of this practice vary greatly, many say it is akin to a grounding practice or part of their religious or spiritual process. Other people say it's just a way to remind themselves that the plane is solid.

3. Is Friday the 13th Actually the Best Day to Fly?

We spoke with experts to deconstruct the myths and realities about flying on the superstitious date.

4. Bringing a good luck charm on a trip

According to the YouGov survey, 31% of Americans at least occasionally bring a lucky charm with them. This is common for travelers, who often pack an item more about the emotional comfort it provides than any logistical purpose. Plenty of travel talismans have religious origins, though they can also be objects that solely have personal significance to the traveler. The concept of a travel charm has become so commonplace that you can find a wide variety of them for sale on marketplaces like Etsy.

4. Starting a trip on a Friday

With varying origins in both Christianity and pagan history, starting a trip on a Friday is considered bad luck, especially among sailors. It might have developed as a less lucky day of the week in Western culture because, in the Christian bible, Christ was crucified on a Friday. Regardless of its origins, if you encounter reluctance to begin a trip on a Friday, this might be why. However, it is also typically one of the most expensive days to fly, which is its own form of bad luck.

In every culture, travel superstitions are subject to change, and some people develop their own unique rituals and fears based on personal experience. What are some of the superstitions you've encountered or practice in your travels?

Banishing Evil With Plants

Atlas Obscura offers some insights into how to best banish evil using what they term as edible plants. I would say that of the three, I would only ingest garlic. The other two could seem to have poisonous properties. But it seems from the article that you needn't actually eat any of these - just wear or hang them around. Check out other options here.

GARLIC

Garlic is a vampire repellent as tried-and-true as silver bullets and sunlight. It’s even used in the American tropics to ward off vampire bats. But why do vampires hate garlic so much? One theory claims that the blood disease porphyria inspired the original European vampire tales. Porphyria’s symptoms are worsened by both garlic and sunlight, which might cause sufferers to avoid them. However, this fails to take into account that garlic has widely been viewed as effective against the supernatural in general, and even non-supernatural misfortune like robbery or wild animal attacks.

The plant’s medicinal properties might explain why garlic was considered protective, and may also explain the vampire connection. Garlic contains the antibiotic compound allicin, and its positive effects on the immune system have long been recognized. Before modern literature like Dracula established the trope of the genteel, aristocratic vampire, the creatures were more associated with filth and disease than glamor. Outbreaks of tuberculosis and other illnesses were sometimes blamed on vampires, as occurred in the “New England vampire panic” of the late 19th century. An ingredient that helps cure sickness is a logical choice to keep away the beings that were believed to cause it. Another reason for garlic’s evil-averting reputation might be its overpowering smell, a feature it shares with other protective herbs like rue.

How to Use It: Wear it around your neck, carry a clove in your pocket, or hang strings or wreaths of bulbs near doorways or windows

Where to Find It: Your local grocery store

 

RUE

Rue’s complex, citrusy bitterness, reminiscent of blood orange, made it a popular ingredient in Medieval Europe, and the Ancient Romans were positively obsessed with rue-laced sauces, salads, and marinades. But today, the herb has largely fallen out of favor because it’s toxic in large quantities. This applies to medicinal more than culinary use; in dishes, a little rue goes a very long way due to its intense flavor. In modern Ethiopia, rue is still used to aromatize coffee, and may be included in the spice mixture berbere.

Fortunately, there’s no medical warning against rue’s other major historical use: magical protection. In Early Modern England, rue had such positive associations that it was used to sprinkle holy water at Christian masses and known as the “herb of grace,” as Ophelia states in Hamlet. A sprig of rue could be carried on one’s person or hung over a bed or doorway, and the plant itself could be grown by the door to prevent evil witches from passing. Rue could also be included in a “witch bottle.” These protective charms were made by sealing a tiny bottle filled with one’s own urine, along with items meant to symbolically hurt any witch who tried to harm the bottle’s maker, such as a piece of rue or sharp pins.

How to Use It: Place a live rue plant near a doorway, carry a pinch of it in your pocket, or make a witch bottle or a protective wand. Rue may be burned as incense in rituals of purification, which is also the most common use for “Syrian rue.”

Where to Find It: Specialty herbal medicine shops or online vendors. It’s easier to find dried rue than fresh nowadays due to its use in traditional medicine. However, I have seen live rue plants for sale at flower shops in New York City’s Flushing Chinatown.

 

HAWTHORN

Along with rowan, hawthorn was regarded as one of the most magical trees in European folklore. Haw comes from the Old English word for “hedge,” and because the tree was grown for boundary-marking hedges, it was believed to form a barrier against evil. In the Balkans, the stakes driven into the hearts of corpses to prevent them from becoming vampires were traditionally carved from hawthorn wood. ABC News reported that the inhabitants of one Serbian village were sharpening hawthorn stakes for this purpose as recently as 2012.

In Central Europe and Britain, hawthorn branches were hung over doorways for protection well into the 19th century. However, the flowers of hawthorn were also associated with death in British folklore because they smell like rotting flesh, thanks to the chemical trimethylamine, which is found in both. It was believed that bringing hawthorn flowers inside a home would bring tragedy to the family, and hawthorn was even known as “mother-die,” a name also used for several poisonous plants.

But far from being poisonous, hawthorn’s crunchy, apple-like fruits have a tart flavor and a high vitamin content. Eaten throughout the Northern Hemisphere, hawthorn fruit was so important to early settlers of Manitoulin Island in Ontario, Canada that locals are still known as “haw-eaters.” In Mexico, whole hawthorn fruits (tejocotes) are a key ingredient in Christmas punch, while in China, they are skewered and dipped in crunchy sugar to make the street snack tanghulu.

How to Use It: Stake vampires with hawthorn wood, or hang branches or wreaths of hawthorn above the doorway (but don’t bring the flowers inside)

Where to Find It: Various species of hawthorn grow wild in North America, Europe, and Asia. Assuming that the powers of the tree extend to its fruit, a Chinese grocery store might be your best bet to find commercial products made with hawthorn. These include soft drinks and filled pastries as well as candies like “Haw Flakes:” crumbly, coin-shaped discs of dried hawthorn often regarded as a nostalgic classic. But can a roll of Haw Flakes hung over your door keep away evil spirits in the same way as a wreath of fresh hawthorn boughs? It can’t hurt to try.

Superstitions and Other Bird Thoughts

Today a bird flew into our door window and I felt a shudder of superstitious fear. I recalled that when a bird flies into a house or hits the door or window that it could portend something terrible. In hoping that I was wrong, I began to search superstition sites and I found a great one that I would like to share. Haunted Hamilton is a great site that offers a list of different superstitions and even some background as to where they came from.

So as for the bird, which was black, brown and white and recuperated after its hit and flew away, the superstitions are --

• A bird that flies into a house foretells an important message. However, if the bird dies, or is white, this foretells death.

• Signs of Impending Doom - Birds flying into a house or banging against the window.

  Of course Snopes always likes to weigh in on this. And I did find an encouraging reading apropos of a bird flying into a window again on Keen:

Bird Flies at the Window, Death Knocks at the Door? Re-posted by Request. I've heard this ominous saying for years, and it still sends chills over my body. My question, however, is what does it really mean when a bird flies at your window? Not just once, but again and again? My sister told me months ago about a little red bird that has been flying at her window every day, sometimes a dozen times. When he isn't hitting the window, he is perched on the arm of a patio chair, and it was at the point where she was really becoming concerned because she, too, had heard the ominous phrase.

I finally did a reading for her and was told that this bird was there to protect her, and he was also warning her of potential danger. Clearly, not a death, but just telling her to be aware of potential dangers around her. She took the warning to heart, took extra care to avoid accidents around the home, and she even went so far as to have a security system installed. Three days after having the system in place, she was awakened to the screeching sound of the security alarm, and found someone attempting to open her downstairs door. Fortunately the police were called out and the intruder was apprehended. Coincidence? I think not, and neither does she.

Her bird has since stopped flying into the window, but he still sits on the chair, her little guardian angel, watching over her. My point in all of this? Be aware that our Guardian Angels take many forms, and I believe that their attempts to get our attention will continue and become stronger until we get the message. So don't force the little bird to break your window. Be aware of the sights and sounds, the seen and the unseen around us, because the protection and the message is always there.

If you want to check out more bird superstitions, check out Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend, and Superstition

And, for those with a belief in guardian angels, you can use your favorite bird as your guardian angel, learn all its information, and even design it into your favorite small items such as Custom Keychains to carry with you.

The Most Haunted Places in America By State

A blog post listing every state would be way too long so here is the link to this fascinating article that lists the most haunted sites in America. To entice you to view the full list, here is the one in Pennsylvania:

Pennsylvania

Eastern State Penitentiary
Philadelphia
Known locally as ESP (already creepy), this 1829 prison originally intended to value reform over punishment. As you can imagine, with an isolated location on 11 acres of land and 30-foot fortress walls, that didn’t exactly work out. Instead, the Eastern State Penitentiary became a real house of horrors and the testing location for a number of "reform" techniques that included paranoia-inducing “panopticon” oversight, now synonymous with a constant threat of surveillance. Reports of shadowy figures, cackling voices, and ghostly guards on patrol have given this joint a reputation as one of the most haunted places in Pennsylvania. And with the mix of wicked pseudoscience, gigantic brutal architecture, and infamous inmates like Al Capone and bank robber Willie Sutton, it also serves as a perfect staging ground for nighttime haunted tours. —BW

Lecture on History of Halloween - Today!

Sorry for the last minute announcement but its not too late!

Spirits, Saints, and Souls: The Secret History of Halloween  With Lisa Morton Starts: Mon, October 14 While modern Halloween is a far cry from its ancient Celtic iteration, it's a holiday entrenched in a nuanced history worth studying and celebrating. Look beyond all the costumes and candy and discover the ancient origins, cultural influences, and evolving traditions that have shaped Halloween around the world. Whether you're a Halloween fanatic or simply interested in history, you'll gain a deeper connection and understanding of this spooky, spectacular occasion!  Syllabus At A Glance: Session 1 | Samhain: Halloween of the Ancients Session 2 | Halloween Comes to America Session 3 | Halloween As We Know It This course (along with other Halloween themed courses) is available at a special discount! Be sure to use code GHOST35 at checkout for 35% off your enrollment!

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Meet Your Instructor:  Lisa Morton is widely considered to be one of the world’s leading authorities on Halloween. She is the author of the award-winning books Ghosts: A Haunted History, Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances, Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, and The Halloween Encyclopedia (now in a second edition). She's also made many appearances on CBS, ABC, NBC, the History Channel, and the Travel Channel.

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