Superstition

I suppose some of the beliefs I grew up with might fall more into that category of "superstition", mostly because I was raised with them (without explanation) in contrast to the beliefs I've adopted over time. My family has either acquired or were raised with a number of beliefs such as never bringing an old broom into a new house, missing articles of clothing or whatever are attributed to little beings in the house (which are either called house goblins or mannihoonies, the latter because of a great aunt who had lived in Hawaii), birds and butterflies doing weird things are probably our deceased relatives, signs from crows (one is bad luck, two good luck, three is a fight, five is a marriage, and six is a death; mind you, they have to stick out and I don't know why my family never said anything about what four crows means...). We also have a piece of lava my great aunt brought back from Hawaii that many in my family is convinced is cursed...but they don't get rid of it, just pass it around. All that and a number of other "superstitions" that are likely a mix of interactions with people from other cultures, as well as continuances from our Irish heritage.

Along the lines of your own superstition of not being too happy, it reminds me of when I was a kid, I was totally convinced that if I wanted something to happen REALLY BAD, then it wouldn't. So I would say things like "I REALLY hope that I don't catch a fish today." when fishing in hopes of confusing whoever wanted to screw me over all the time...

EDIT: Nevermind, that last one is identical to your own.....hopefully there isn't anything to it.....

Rakes every day mostly warding off bad luck and getting good luck.

I see magpies everyday and say good morning general to get rid of the bad luck or count them to see whats good luck that day similar to anfiasaloch with crows.
I avoid crossing a cats path to avoid badluck.
I walk clockwise around things and avoid going anti clockwise.
I avoid taboo behaviors in case it brings me bad luck like greed/over eating/impulse buying.
I believe being generous with friends and things like giving money to homeless people is good luck.
I avoid talking out of school, saying bad things about people brings bad luck.
I believe when people say bad things about me my ear burns and the same thing happens to people if i talk badly about them.
I throw salt over my left shoulder to ward off bad luck...
I believe the morning wind is bad luck and carries sickness unless you wrap up to avoid it.
I say bless you when someone else sneezes and excuse me when I sneeze because its proper behaviour and itd be taboo not to. Bad luck.

Thats just the stuff that comes to mind now. In a more trad setting theres 1000s of things done every day. Luck in Irish trad is like life force, youve only so much of it from the day youre born. When you run out you loose everything and die.

Thats not related to paganism though. In terms of paganism Im very careful around types of people who can be draining. Energy as opposed to luck isnt finite but keeping that shield around chakras is important to me because Ive only so much strength for the day. In terms of polytheism I dont think about deities while Im at a heritage site unrelated to them. I live in Maynooth, maigh nuad the plain of Nuadhu so I dont consider lugh his opposite number in the seasonal battle while im at home.

Sure its the standard folk stuff, people recignise the supernaturals influence on their lives, that theres cot death, death in childbirth, death from heart attacks, death from drawn out sickness all in cattle and humans and blame it on the evil eye stealing your luck. When its not the eye of the fairiesits because someones taking your luck with piseogs and they can do it consciously or be doing it unconciously. It could be an envious neighbour who 'begrudges' you your luck in life or it could be someone thats just bad luck by being the victim of bad luck themselves doing it without thinking.

Its a huge part of trad culture here. Before I wandered away from my blog I did a post aimed at local pagans about using dia dhuit. They dont want to use it because it involves god but its a way of publically declaring that you dont want to cause the person harm, to steal their luck, their effort. Theres another ritualised greeting involved too spitting. You spit all over everything, tools, babies, horses, houses, hands, because spit is a potent means of protecting against the fairies and the evil eye.

I dont like gaelic cos it was forced on me and generations before me by xenophobic nationalists who eradicted the two languages spoken in Leinster and they continue to try to wipe out the remaining ethnicities refusing to aknowlege them despite eu directives and so on. My rant. But Id prefer the gaelic greeting to the spitting and Id definately prefer that local pagans embrace their trads instead of getting rid of them in favour of a trend of anti christianism in paganism.

Haha yeah, all I really remember is the windex thing and greeks Ive met say thats absolutely true except in greece its a lemon spray cos they dont have windex.

The languages are Yola in the south and Fingallian in the north. Theyre a lingua franca spoken by non gaelic ethnicities and defined as a form of english but theyre also a mix of norman french, italian and old norse. And cos the language was fully formed when middle english was still spoken its not identifiably english when you hear it or see it written down. Theres 3 famous books with fingallian starting in the 16th century and theres fingallian dress in the national museum. Theres even yola folk songs like this one www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFl9ptuxd8s

I really have nothing good to say about the gaelic national identity and the nation state that uses it to legitimise itself. I could go on a rant but its enough to say they are nationalists and socialists, caused anti semetic riots in the early 20th century and harboured nazi war criminals after ww2. They gaelicized the other ethnicities its a nice buzz word but they ran them out of existance so they could grab power for themselves.

Youre welcome Erin. The nazi stuff is common knowlege, the enemy of my enemy justifies it for nationalists. Boo nationalism. Lads like the 'folklore collector' douglas hyde were defending their anti semitism in newspapers and the dail. Yeats was defending his in the senate and it caused riots. Those lads are the founders of gaelic identity and a major influence on celtic studies. Nothing written in celtic studies in ireland until the 70s is worth reading imo because those people are the source. Aryianism with them isnt just a precursor to indo european and I find it fairly shocking how frequently aryianism is mentioned in celtic studies back then. Particularly with hyde and yeats who were major influences in my life.

www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/disgraceful-irish-report-on-kristallnacht-goes-on-display-1.1589059
www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/how-devs-ireland-became-safe-haven-for-fugitive-nazis-26443045.html

Fingallian gets its name from the area it was spoken, Fingal. It was an ethonym taken on as toponym by the anglo normans when they arrived and its an administrative county today. Theres no leinster dialect of gaelic so with Yola it was probably spoken beyond fingal province wide. My granda spoke it in a pidgin way in the part of dublin he was from but I dont know anyone who speaks it now. Id love to say I knew more but like shelta and ulster scots no one knows anything, theres no studies done.

Yep rewriting history is a part of life its not an empirical truth as much as a bunch of statistics that present different information depending on how theyre arranged. Its still a feckin shame though. Like France got rid of the culture in Brittany, like spain marginalised the Basque and catalan... nation states are like culture cancer. (dramatic!)

I really like that O Rahilly idea of myth being medieval literature, its been massively popular for what 60 years? but I dont think pagans in any real numbers get that it means myth isnt an iron age oral thing. It leads to a lot of sillyness. Ultimately we cant make a religion out of textbooks though and there has to be some theology that stands seperate from it. Theory is supposed to change but religious truth isnt.

I do the whole seed the money thing as well. I was also told to not put wallets or purses on the ground(which reminds me, need to put an old purse up high).

It would be interesting to see where the root of some of these came from. Though the whole don't say what you really desire, or what you, that I thought was a personal superstition, I find it disturbing(like oh crap) that I'm not the only one.