I am not superstitious on the whole, I was born on the 13th so am, tradition says, immune from the bad luck connected with that number.
I will happily walk under ladders, spill salt, take the third light from a match (when I used to smoke) but, because my mother was a firm beliver in this one, I always salute a single magpie.
You all know the list;
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a wedding
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a story never to be told.
One therefore was the one that brought trouble and my mother always saluted a single magpie as that, so she told us,removed the bad luck.
The trouble is that I have noticed lately that my stimulus response to Magpies is such that if I come across two, or three or more I still salute them, thereby, according to my mother’s gospel, losing the benefit from the other more positive numbers.
This morning as I was watching the snow melt fast in the garden, I heard a squawk from the Birch and saw two Magpies squatting there.
Keeping my arms firmly by my sides I forced myself not to salute them and photographed them instead.
Now all I have to do is sit tight and await the joy.
Post Scriptum at 10.00
The post just arrived carrying
a) A book I ordered from Amazon in January and had been hasseling them about.
b)A cheque, expected since January and all the more welcome now.
Thanks Magpies, thats the Two for Joy taken care of.
Comments
Kevin O'Carroll
on April 9, 2008I always thought it was:
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Knowing Martin’s prodigous memory he is probably correct!
Martin
on April 9, 2008We are both right, and several others are as well.The only constant seems to be one and two.
(I have a feeling that three for a girl is a more PC version.)
Jay
on April 18, 2008Ha! If you read all the different versions of this rhyme, some contradictory, you’ll find it hard to continue being superstitious!
Anyway, we always have a lot of magpies around here, so if that rhyme always foretold true, I’d have an enormous family of children by now, instead of just the two lads I do have!
Martin
on April 20, 2008Unfortunately one of the magpies which was haunting the back garden has gone AWOL (I suspect because he had had his wicked way with the other) so now there is just the one, and I am back to saluting like an automaton.
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