Mole On Your Arm, Live On A Farm

Who thinks these things up? The following nuggets, in the original vernacular, are taken from Current Superstitions, Collected From the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk, an 1896 book filled with strange notions from all over the country. Remember: Keep your hoes outside and your bread right side up, and never, ever, comb your hair after dark.

"If a piece of wedding cake is passed through a ring and put in the left stocking, then placed under a pillow and slept on three nights running, you will dream of your lover, or he or she will come to you."
-New England

"On Halloween, put a ring in a dish of mashed potatoes, and the one who gets the ring first will be married first."
-Boston

"Mole on your arm, live on a farm."
-Alabama

"Walking across the room with one shoe off is a sign of ill luck."
-Alabama

"If you comb your hair after dark, it will make you forgetful."
-Northern Ohio

"Returning to the house for something and starting again without sitting down is bad luck."
-Virginia

"If you go back to the house after something forgotten, you must not sit down, but stand a moment or two, or else it is bad luck."
-Cape Breton

"To turn a loaf of bread upside down is ill luck."
-Northern Ohio

"Light coming in at the window is a bad sign."
-Peabody, Massachusetts

"To carry a hoe through the house is ill luck."
-Alabama

"To cure nose-bleeding, write the person's name on the forehead."
-Newfoundland

"When a great many women are seen on the street, it will rain the next day."
-Bedford, Massachusetts