Knock on wood, but I think I’ve wasted enough time on silly superstitions

OpinionBroadcaster and columnistAugust 1, 2026 — 5:30amWe were sitting outside in the sun, on the broad steps of Sydney’s new fish market, when a bird flew overhead and launched a massive poo on the young woman sitting in front of us. The “dropping” was enormously accurate and voluminous, covering all of her left hand, part of her left arm and much of her dress.Keen to make her feel better, I told her: “They say it brings good luck.”What’s so bad about a black cat?Getty ImagesHer boyfriend turned with a smile. “In that case,” he says, “she’s in for a lot of good luck. Heaps of it.” At which point he began helping with the laborious clean-up.What are the origins of these superstitions? Who was the first person to see someone cop a flying splodge of bird poo, and then say: “They say it brings good luck”?I understand the principle: something unfortunate has happened, so you want to make the person feel better. But why bird poo? We don’t offer this consolation after other misfortunes. If someone smacks their head into a low-lying branch, we don’t say: “Lucky dog! You better buy a lottery ticket.” If you get mugged, the thief pushing you to the ground and stealing your phone, the next person along doesn’t help you to your feet with the cheery observation: “Well, there’s nothing like a violent mugging to bring a bit of good luck.”Most superstitions make no sense. Why does a rabbit foot bring great fortune? It certainly didn’t work for the rabbit from which it was removed. And what’s so bad about a black cat? You wouldn’t dream of judging a person according to the colour of their skin, but apparently cats are fair game.It’s true my generation didn’t have YouTube or Netflix, but frankly we were flat-out keeping the devil at bay.When I was growing up, we lived in a world of superstitions. We were told not to step on the cracks in the pavement, to avoid the number 13, and to never open an umbrella when indoors.Saying something positive about oneself or hopeful about the future was generally frowned upon. But if you insisted – “hopefully I’ll pass my exams”, “no way will I crash my bike” – you had to immediately say “knock on wood” and then find some wood on which to knock. Since most 1970s houses were constructed from a mix of fibro, brown linoleum and orange Laminex, this was often hard to achieve.Also, every time someone sneezed you had to say “bless you”, which apparently stopped the devil from using that moment of inattention to enter their soul. If you spilt salt, you also had to throw some over your left shoulder (using your right arm) which had the excellent effect of blinding the devil as he hovered at your shoulder. It’s true my generation didn’t have YouTube or Netflix, but frankly we were flat-out keeping the devil at bay.Special occasions such as birthdays were marked by a dinner of roast chicken, the climax of which involved two people grasping the “wish bone” and tearing it in two, good fortune going to the person who ended up with the larger bit of bone. The chicken, already having been throttled, plucked and baked, might have wondered about the purpose of this final indignity, yet it was not possible to eat a chicken while leaving its furcula alone.At Christmas, meanwhile, a silver sixpence would be baked into the Christmas pudding, ready to bring good luck to whoever found it. Or bad luck if you were a seven-year-old and ended up with it stuck in your windpipe, a leading cause of Christmas hospitalisations.The same coin, should it be located in the pudding or returned later by the surgeon, could then be offered as payment for a kitchen knife should you wish to give a knife as a present. It was bad luck to give knives as gifts – it would “cut” the friendship – so the gift had to be turned into a purchase.We were also told we could get rid of warts by “washing our hands in moonlight”, or rubbing them with a piece of meat which you’d then bury in the backyard. If you’ve ever found an old chop bone in your backyard, it was buried there by some warty kid.You may think this was a charmingly enchanted world, but it did add a lot of fuss to the simplest of tasks, as we were constantly forced to leap over cracks, throw salt over our shoulders, and search for wood to knock upon. In hay fever season, you’d bless more people than the local priest.Did any of the superstitions make sense? Perhaps a couple. I still avoid walking beneath a ladder, based on the practical consideration that a bucket of paint might be up there somewhere, ready to fall on my head. I also believe that it’s bad luck to put shoes on a table – the bad luck being the transmission of some nasty bug, picked up off the floor of a Sydney bus.As for those low-flying birds at the Sydney Fish Market, I’m betting they did bring good luck. That young woman’s boyfriend was so solicitous, tenderly dabbing her with napkins. It was probably the confirmation for which she’d been hoping: this one was a keeper.Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.From our partners