False Omens. From Knocking on Wood to Spilled Salt: Why We Believe in What Isn't There

Even the most rational people sometimes knock on wood, sit on the path, or try not to pass things through the threshold. But why exactly this way? Let's follow the traces of habits whose meanings we have long stopped noticing.

In this new book, Sergey Antonov, familiar to readers of MIF from the bestsellers "Not Bad Words" and "Unclean Words", examines about three dozen of the most well-known superstitions that are still common today. For example, why are we afraid of a black cat and the devil's dozen? And how should we properly use a horseshoe found "for good luck" and why are mirrors covered in the house of the deceased?

At the same time, the author does not seek to debunk or ridicule folk omens. On the contrary, we have a story about how these beliefs were born: where real everyday reasons stood behind them, where there was elementary practicality, and where there were fears and a desire to make the world at least a little more understandable.

The author relies on the works of ethnographers and folklorists of the 19th–20th centuries, memoirs, and immortal classics. Inside the book, there are many curious details that make us look at the familiar childhood "grandmother's tales" in a new light.