To spill salt. Matters are somewhat improved if you throw some of it over your left shoulder (C).[1]
To go under a ladder; also to hold an umbrella over one's head while in the house (C).[2]
To meet (not to overtake or be overtaken by) any person on the stairs (C).[3]
When having your fortune told by tea-leaves, to point at them with the finger; this nullifies the signs and brings on ill fortune. If you must point, use a spoon or the like.
To dress one foot entirely while the other is still bare (C).
If after starting from the house you go back for something forgotten, sit down and count seven before starting out again. Otherwise you will be unlucky (C).[4]
Sing before breakfast and you will be sorry before supper, ("will cry before dinner," C).
The following are lucky:—
To find a horse-shoe (C).
If a cat comes to one's house and stays. But, if the cat is black, it will bring bad luck (C).
To put on clothes accidentally wrong side out. If it is necessary to change them, wish. (C.—Wishing seems a powerful counter-agent to evil influences, vid. supra.)
To put the left boot on first. This brings good luck while those boots are worn.
A rabbit's foot should be carried for luck (C). (This is of course American, originally Southern, but rabbit-foot charms have of late years been popular in the Northern States as well.)[5]
"See a pin and pick it up,
All that day you'll have good luck" (C).
After mentioning a piece of good fortune, touch wood, or you may lose it.
