In her book on superstition, journalist Piia Kaskinen compiled more than 50 beliefs and the reasons behind them.
– Everyone knows that gold is believed to be found at the end of the rainbow. But fewer people know that in many cultures, the rainbow has been a harbinger of death or a sign of death. In some cultures, they have been bridges between the human world and the afterlife,” says Piia Kaskinen.
Kaskinen has recently completed a work called _The Book of the Black Cat_, which deals with superstition and the reasons behind the beliefs.
The book was born out of interest
The inspiration to write the book came when Piia Kaskinen found a two-euro coin on the street. Kaskinen’s friend told her to play the lottery with the coin, because the coin she found was lucky.
– I started to think why I did this. Everyone knows these beliefs, but not the reasons for them. We knock on wood and cross our fingers to avoid bad luck, even if we don’t know why.
Kaskinen noticed that there was no book in Finnish that explained the reasons for the beliefs. He got his hands on literature on foreign superstitions and went through a large number of old newspaper articles found in the National Archives, for example.
That’s how _The Black Cat’s Book_ was born.
More than 50 beliefs and their backgrounds have been reviewed in the book. For example, many people are familiar with the saying that someone got out of bed on the wrong foot.
– It’s because once upon a time the left side was generally considered really bad and the right side really good. Basically, the evil of the left is because the sun has been one of man’s earliest gods, and the sun rotates clockwise all the time. When a person turns to the sun, his right side points in the same direction, says Kaskinen, who lives in Imatra.
According to the same logic, the spoon should always be rotated clockwise in the coffee cup.
Maximising happiness
According to Kaskinen, some of the beliefs go back to the time before the beginning of the countdown, even to the time of the Neanderthals. Basically, it’s been about survival.
– If the reason for the beliefs had to be squeezed into a nutshell, they were certainly born because people wanted to maximize their own happiness. Living completely at the mercy of natural forces, you have had to do everything you can to survive, Kaskinen says.
Piia Kaskinen admits that she is also superstitious herself. Beliefs have also come true for him.
– I was recently in the forest looking for mushrooms and I noticed a black mold that had fallen on the forest road. I took a couple of steps and tripped so badly that I sprained my ankle. A little later, I remembered the European belief that a black feather that fell on the road should always be placed upright on the ground. Otherwise, an accident will happen, Kaskinen says.
_What thoughts did the story evoke? You can comment on 14.9. until 11 p.m. with the Yle ID._