Also called seven years bad luck, breaking a mirror
Breaking a mirror is said to bring seven years of bad luck. Folk remedies include burying the pieces, washing them in running water, grinding them to powder, or keeping your reflection out of the broken glass, all done while staying safe from sharp shards.
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Take care: Broken glass cuts. Wear shoes and gloves, never grind glass (the dust is harmful to breathe), never put glass in streams or open ground where people or animals walk, and wrap and label it before disposal.
One recorded remedy is to blacken the pieces in fire, then bury them a year later, which some say shortens the bad luck to one year.
Washing the shards in a stream flowing south was said to wash the bad luck away within hours instead of years.
Mirrors were turned to the wall or covered after a death in the house. Explanations vary, from keeping the soul from being trapped to turning attention away from vanity during mourning.
Many writers say the Romans believed a mirror held part of the soul and that life renewed itself every seven years, giving the seven-year penalty. This is repeated widely, but no clear Roman source for the mirror belief has been found, so treat it as a theory. What is certain is that mirrors were long tied to the soul and to divination: scrying in water and polished surfaces is ancient, and a broken reflection naturally looked like a bad sign.
Glass mirrors backed with metal became widespread in Europe from the 1500s and 1600s and were expensive. Folklorists note that warnings about broken mirrors may have helped keep servants careful with costly household goods. By the 19th century collectors recorded the seven-year rule across Britain and America, along with remedies like burial, running water and grinding the glass to powder.
A reflective protection spell that uses a mirror, turned outward, to bounce any ill will or bad luck back toward wherever it came from. It names no one: the mirror simply refuses to hold what is sent.
Spilling salt is an old omen of bad luck or a quarrel. The customary remedy is to take a pinch of the spilled salt with your right hand and throw it over your left shoulder, where the Devil is said to wait, to blind him.
Friday the 13th is the day many people in the English-speaking world consider unluckiest. It joins two older fears, of Fridays and of the number 13, and the combined belief only shows up in print in the late 1800s, despite popular stories about the Knights Templar.
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