SUPERSTITION: Do you avoid walking under ladders? Do you knock on wood? Say ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes?

Where do these superstitions come from? According to Farmers’ Almanac, they come from lots of places.

“Since a ladder, leaning against a wall, forms a triangle with the ground and the wall, the belief is that you’d better not step through it and break it, or evil may befall you,” the Almanac says. “The triangle was a sacred symbol to the early Christians, representing the Blessed Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Walking under a ladder was considered a serious sin because it weakened God’s power, and thus released evil demons into the world.” Yikes.

This one is pretty grim: “Before the gallows were invented, murderers were hung from the top rungs of ladders. Many people believed that their ghosts had a habit of hanging around under those ladders where the bodies fell, so it behooved a wise person to not walk under a ladder.”

Knocking on wood is a belief that started with the Druids. “Their idea of divinity involved nature and the trees were their gods. Knocking on wood was considered a form of physical contact with them, which brought along good fortune.”

What about the sneeze-and-response phrase of ‘bless you?’

“During the sixth century, it was a tradition to congratulate people who sneezed because people believed that sneezing helped expel evil from their bodies. Years later, when a plague took over Europe, sneezing meant that the person was going to die from it. People blessed the person who sneezed because they were surely going to succumb to the plague and needed prayer. Saying the German, gesundheit, is essentially the same thing; it translates literally to ‘good health.’”

Keep your fingers crossed that we’ll have more superstitions another day.