Current Superstitions
Edited By Fanny D. Bergen
Chapter X
Money
714. A group of bubbles on a cup of coffee signifies money.
United States.
715. A mass of bubbles floating on a cup of coffee signifies that money is coming to one. If he can take up the bubbles on his spoon, it indicates that he will get the money, but if they escape he will not.
Prince Edward Island.
716. If a group of bubbles are floating on the tea or coffee cup, take them up in a spoon, and swallow them unbroken, saying, “Save my money.”
Plymouth and Salem, Mass., and New Brunswick.
717. If when you stir your coffee at breakfast you will try to catch the bubbles on top, you can have as many dollars as you can catch whole ones.
Alabama.
718. To find money and keep it insures good luck through the year.
Talladega, Ala.
719. Put the first piece of money you get in the morning into your stocking, and you will have more to add to it before night.
Alabama.
720. If you find a piece of money the first day of the year, you will have good luck all the rest of the year.
Alabama.
721. If paper money is folded lengthwise first, it will insure the possession of money. If folded the short fold first, money will not remain in the pocket.
Alabama.
722. To make a sale in the first place where an agent calls is good luck. For example, a magnifying-glass worth three dollars was sold for seventy-five cents, in order to stop a run of bad luck by making a sale.
Massachusetts.
723. If your initials spell a word, it means that you will be rich.
Massachusetts and Ohio.[88]
724. If the right hand itches, it is a sign you will receive money; if the left, you will spend money, because R stands for receive, and L for let go.
New York.
725. If the left hand itches and you rub it on wood, you’ll receive money before the end of the week.
Rub it on wood
To make it good.
Very common in New Brunswick and New England.
726. Itching in the palm of the hand means that it will soon receive money. Clap the closed hand into the pocket.
Mt. Desert, Me.
727. If you place your money according to value, i. e., lay it in order, you will be rich.
Bedford, Mass.
728. An old superstition pertaining to clothing is, that before putting on new clothes a sum of money must be placed in the right-hand pocket, which will insure its always being full. If by mistake, however, it be put in the left hand pocket, the wearer will never have a penny so long as the clothes last.
729. There’s a “bag of money,” or a “pot of gold,” at the end of the rainbow.
General among children.
730. If you sew in the twilight, you will never be rich.
Miramichi, N. B.
731. If you mend or sew on a garment while wearing it, you will always be poor.
Bathurst, N. B.
732. Always shut the doors, or you will never own a house.
Salem, Mass.
733. Sparks in the soot on the back wall above a coal fire bring wealth.
Rhode Island.
734. Say “Money” three times at sight of a meteor, and you’ll get it, or wish and you’ll get it.
735. When you see a shooting star, say “money.” As many times as you are able to repeat the word during the fall of the star, so many dollars you will have in your pocket.
Connecticut.