Cats, of course, have a unique place in superstition. All over the world cats were believed to have powers of good or evil. They could see spirits, foretell death, and even control the elements. It was believed at one time that all witches kept cats as familiars. In the United States it is considered bad luck for a black cat to cross your path. However, in Britain black cats are good luck, and white cats are extremely unlucky. If a black cat comes uninvited into your house, it is a sign of good fortune to come, and must not be chased away or the luck will leave. If someone in the house is ill and the cat leaves, the sick person will die.
It is unlucky to carry a shovel through a house, as it is a sign that soon a grave must be dug.
Snails were believed to have the power of healing many different illnesses. A gypsy remedy for cough was to put a black snail in brown sugar, and when the snail's slime is mixed in with the sugar it was given to the sick person to eat. In the seventeenth century snail slime was a seriously recommended cure for consumption. The snails were taken from their shells, mixed with sugar, water, barley and milk to make an emulsion. As late as 1929 people in the Blue Ridge Mountains took snails (by swallowing a live one every day for nine days) to cure tuberculosis. It was thought that during the course of the treatment the snails lived in the stomach for a while and their slime would heal the lungs. On Halloween night a charm could be used to find the initials of a future husband or wife by putting a snail on the hearth and letting it crawl in the ashes. In the morning the initials would be traced in the ash. A black snail crossing your path was bad luck, and to ward off misfortune the person had to grab the snail's horn and throw it over their left shoulder.
The hedgehog was considered unlucky - it was thought that they drank up all the cow's milk when the cow was lying in the grass. A hedgehog entering a house was extremely bad luck. The hedgehog was also credited with knowing when storms were coming.
"Observe which way the hedgehog builds her nest,
To front the north or south, or east or west;
For if 'tis true what common people say,
The wind will blow the quite contrary way.
If by some secret art the hedgehogs know
So long before, which way the winds will blow,
She has an art which many a poor person lacks,
That thinks herself fit to make almanacks."
- Poor Robin's Almanack, 1733
A bright red ladybug brings good fortune. It is thought to be good luck if a ladybug lands on you. It must be allowed to fly away on its own, however. A children's rhyme goes:
"Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.
Your house is on fire and your children are gone."
It is ill luck if trees shed their leaves before autumn. It is unlucky to keep withered leaves in the house, and a Welsh tradition states that dead leaves left in a church where a baby was christened means an early death for the child. If leaves make a rustling noise all of a sudden, it means it will rain soon. An old rhyme speaks of a tradition concerning new leaves on the oak and ash:
"If the oak comes before the ash,
We shall only have a splash.
If the ash comes before the oak,
We are sure to have a soak."
It is a very ancient belief that a shadow is a person's soul, or a mysterious entity tied to that person. As such, any harm that came to the shadow would injure, or even kill, that person. This idea survives today in the belief that it is bad luck to step on someone's shadow. Baring-Gould writes in his Book of Folk-Lore that he observed children scream angrily if another child stepped on their shadow, saying that it hurt them. In a legendary Irish tale the hero Fionn pursues his enemy without rest, finally killing him by throwing a spear through his shadow. In Eastern Europe there was a belief that a newly built house would not stand unless something had been buried alive in the foundation. Builders sometimes made the neccessary sacrifice by measuring a man's shadow in secret with a length of string, and then burying the string under the stone.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Superstitions, E. and M.A. Radford
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