The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1876-10-28
WHOLE NO. 616.
Curious Superstitions.

There is a curious superstition about the spilling
of salt. 1t is supposed to have come from the
East where to have partaken of an Arabs "bread
and salt is regarded as assuring the person who
partakes thereof not alone of hospitality, but of
personal safety.
In Byron's "Corsair," one of his earliest and
best poems, Conrad, pirate and hero Of the
tale, is made to head an attack, in the Bay of
COran upon a Turkish pacha named Seyd He
visits that parsonage and is disguised in the garb
of dervise, fresh from the pirates den and pre-
tends to be very communicative, his design all the
time being to act as spy on the Pacha's own po-
| sitiOn, force and vulnerable parts.
| The pretended dervise, who claims that he has
escaped from enforced detention on the pirates
island, is offered food which he refuses, and the
Pacha asks:
Why dOst thou shun the salt that sacred pledge
Which, once partaken, blunts the sabres edge,
Makes even cOntending tribes in peace unite
And hated hosts seem brethren to the sight.
In the north of Scotland, among the Highland
| ers-a rough and ready race, who are very hOspi-
table, as far as their limited means permit-it is
held unlucky to help any one at table to salt The
hand will be pushed back; for the Highland
thought, rudely expressed in verse, is:
Help me TO salt
Help me to sorrow.
The common belief is, that it is unlucky to spill
the salt, but that the luck can be changed by TAX
ing up pinch of the salt and throwing it over the
left shoulder To spill salt on Friday is consider.
ed especially unlucky. In the poems of John Gay,
poet not much read at present, there is this
| cOuplet
The salt is split; to you it fell,
hope Cornish friends are well.
In general salt spoons are not in ordinary use
in Italy, except in the hotels in large cities and
among wealthy or noble persons, consequently in
helping ones self the salt is often dropped, but
this is thought nothing of there. To spill drop
OF oil, however, is regarded as an omen of the
worst import. On the other hand, to spill wine
prOvokes merriment there the joke being that it
had been caused by the unsteadiness of the hand
and head, arising from having taken a cup too
much.
ApprOpos of suprrstitions of the table, let me
mention lin reply to some requests) all that have
been able to collect concerning the common idea
that it is unlueky for thirteen persons to sit down
together at meal, because one of the thirteen
would certainly die within the next twelve months.
The belief that thirteen is an unlucky number"
has been traced back to a variety of causes. Lord
LyttletOn, who has made considerable research in
these matters, refers the i'll luck of thirteen at ta-
BILE" to the Last Supper Of our Lord, at which that
number sat down together on Friday; but there
is no warrant for this, as the Last Supper was on
the fifth, not the sixth day of the week..
The Germans derive the superstition from the
Morse or Northern mythology. Of the gods who
sat down to feast with Loki, in the Walhalla Bal
dur had to die-because he was the thirteenth.
In Dantzig, the principal seaport and one Of the
oldest cities in Prussia, there is curious clock,
which at twelve admits through the door little eff
gies of Christ and the eleven, shutting out Judas,
the betrayer, who is the thirteenth. He, however,
is admitted at one o'clock