“Good Luck” I’m sure, is a phrase everyone doing exams this week has heard all too many times. But if you haven’t, or if you are in fact counting on Lady Luck herself to get you through that Biology GCSE like me, maybe you should try some of these weird and wonderful good luck rituals, practised around the word.
- Spill water behind someone – practised in Serbia, to encourage the fluidity and soothing feeling of water. To put this into practice, why not slosh that sports cap Evian bottle behind your friend on the way into the sports hall.
- Wish someone: In bocca al lupo (Into the mouth of Wolf). This is an Italian idiom, to prepare them for a difficult challenge, much like an exam.
- Throw salt over your shoulder – a better known tradition, originating in Europe, to ward off the Devil. (Don’t mind me, off to the canteen to grab some of those salt packets.)
- Make some puns – a tradition in China, to leave someone in awe of your clever word play. This is extremely popular at New Year, as ‘abundance’ and ‘fish’ are homophonous, meaning people wish each other that “There will be fish every year.” I can understand that; after all, why are fish so lucky? They seize every oppor-tuna-ty… don’t worry, I’ll show myself out.
- Give some encouragement Australian thespian style by wishing someone “Chookas!” Wishing someone good luck, like in most theatres, is bad luck, but instead of going down the more violent route of ‘breaking a leg’, this is believed to originate from hoping the play did so well that the cast could eat chicken afterwards (once a particularly expensive meal)
- Another New Year’s Eve tradition from the Philippines – wearing polka dots to guarantee prosperity. Worth a shot…
- Cockroaches. In rural Russia cockroaches were once believed to be a lucky omen. I think hotels today would disagree, but each to their own.
- Wear black – it’s considered lucky in Ethiopia as it connotes rich soil.
- Spill the rum – in Cuba after opening rum a few drops must be spilt before hand to ward off evil omens and be blessed by good spirits
- Walk to the highest point of a tower in Ireland, hang over the rail and kiss a stone (see below). Kissing the Blarney stone at Blarney castle is meant to give the kisser the ‘gift of the gab.’ There are a few legends to back this claim up, including that Cormac Laidir MacCarthy – the builder of castle – got into some legal trouble, and by the kindness of the goddess Cliodhna he was given the gift of eloquence after kissing the stone. A second is that a different Cormac MacCarthy, Cormac Teige MacCarthy, was deprived of land rights and told to kiss the stone to persuade Queen Elizabeth to return the land to its true owner. I only have one question – does it help in French Oral exams?
