Snarky Brides

Old Wives' Tales

I just had a flashback to our family friend who used to always say that a woman who was on her period couldn't hold a baby boy because it would somehow hurt their penis. I have never heard of such a thing since and obviously it's not true, but they really believed it! I remember her daughter who was my age picking up her nephew and her mom yelling at her to put him down because she was on her period and she was like 'oh yeah I forgot.' wtf?

Anyway, what are some "old wives tales" that you've heard of that are a bit off the wall. Anything that crazy?
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Re: Old Wives' Tales

  • That's a really weird one, Rho!

    I remember all my grandpa's old wives tale involved dish rags. You drink water through a dish rag to cure hiccups. If you have a wart, you touch it with a used dish rag and then bury the dish rag in the backyard. Hah!
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  • dish rags cure cancer! who knew? =)
    It reminds me of that Chris Rock skit where he was talking about how his dad would use robitussin to cure everything. Got a broken leg? pour some tussin on it!
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  • My sister's in-laws strongly believe that you must serve apples with pork because they think that apples "kill the trichinosis". 
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  • My great grandmother used to tell me that if the foot of your bed faces your bedroom door ghosts will come and carry you away in the night.

    She also told me if you sleep on your stomach with your head to one side your spine will grow crooked.

    Both freaked me out!
  • I remember the one to only cut your hair on a full moon.
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  • Cats sucking the breath from babies.

    Put a slice of wedding cake (if you're single) under your pillow and you'll dream of the man you'll marry! Yeah...... all kinds of impossible there.

    If you get married on or during the week of your husband-to-be's birthday, your marriage will be happy and blessed. FWIW, I got married 2 days after my husband's b-day. I think it's so the groom stands a better chance at remembering his anniversary date..... (and that's one reason I chose ours!)

    There was one about getting married at 3:15 vs. 3:45 - I can't remember how that went (it was the 15 and 45 part)
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    Do not mess in the affairs of dinosaurs because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
    I love you Missy. Even though you are not smart enough to take online quizzes to find out really important information. ~cew
  • My mom's side of the family maintained that if a bird got into your house, someone was going to die.


  • I remember my mom telling me the "if you pull out a gray hair, two will grow back in its place."

    My grandpa used to tell me to eat the crust of my toast because it would make my hair curly and make me smarter.
  • WTF, M&M?! That would terrifying!

    Rho, I've seen that! My parents were like that about campho phenique. They had this little green bottle that was about 20 years ago when I was a kid. I think they still have that damn bottle in their medicine cabinet.
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  • The one that is still rampant to me is that deaths come in 3's.
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  • My mom used to tell me to pinch my chin in. If it the skin stayed in, I would have a boy. If it went out, I would have a girl. Also, check the hairline of the first born child. If it's straight across, the next child would be a girl. If the hair goes down, the next child will be a boy.

    All BS because as we know, it's the sperm that determines the child's gender.
  • Who has heard of the OWT regarding other people trying on your e-ring?  I'd never heard this, but when I was first engaged my married BFF asked whether she could try on my ring or did I think that was bad luck.  I had never heard it before.

    I've also heard a crazy Catholic one from older fam where you have to go to Mass on the first Friday of every month for nine months.  If you do this, you're guaranteed that a priest will be there to give you your last rights when you die.  If you die and there isn't a priest to perform the sacrament, you can be returned to your body.
  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_old-wives-tales?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:ac539598-27e1-4b90-8090-df9c75b49687Post:18956c27-7d79-467a-aed4-69baec0cffdc">Re: Old Wives' Tales</a>:
    [QUOTE]My mom used to tell me to pinch my chin in. If it the skin stayed in, I would have a boy. If it went out, I would have a girl. Also, check the hairline of the first born child. If it's straight across, the next child would be a girl. If the hair goes down, the next child will be a boy. <strong>All BS because as we know, it's the sperm that determines the child's gender.
    </strong>Posted by GreenPepperBurger[/QUOTE]

    Says you! I'm the oldest of two brothers and I'm the only one with a widow's peak.
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  • My grandmother in-law firmly believed the cats sucking the baby's breath thing.  She freaked that we weren't going to get rid of Roger when we had a baby.

    My uncle told me that eating bread crust would make hair grow on my chest (I believed him - wouldn't eat bread crust for years).  And if you swallow a watermelon seed it will grow a plant in your stomach.

    Not really an old wives' tale, but I had my daughter convinced for a couple of years that everything in the world used to be black and white, and that color wasn't invented until I was little.  The proof I offered was that old TV shows and movies are all B&W because nothing was actually in color.  She's still mad about believing it.
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  • If you keep making that ugly face, someone will come up to you and slap you on the back ,and it'll stay that way!

    My daddy used to tell us that if we unscrewed our belly buttons, out butts would fall off, but I don't think that qualifies as an old wives tale.
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  • Missy, I believe it's that it's good luck to get married while the hour is waxing (3:01-3:30) verses waning (3:45-3:59). There is a similar one about you should get married before the moon is full, but never when the moon is waning.

    Rho, periods still are a very scary supernatural force in a lot of Native cultures. There is a lot of teaching about how it makes a woman unclean to bleed for 7 days and there are many superstitions about touching weapons, food, infants, etc. I used to participate in a local sweat lodge and you were absolutely prohibited from going in if you were on your period.

    I hate the death comes in 3's. Or bad things come in 3's. That one was definitely true for me. Within a period of 2 weeks one of my pets died, my g-grandma died, and my car broke down (as in, could not fix it ever broke down).
  • I think my dad had campho! It was like a liquid version of vicks vaporub--very menthol-y smelling and had these little white lumps in it that looked like mostly-melted ice cubes. He'd have me sniff it when I had a cold to clear up the sinuses. He also had something called asafoetida which was supposed to help stomach aches. It smelled like sh!t, literally. It's also called devil's dung if that tells you anything
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  • We had Campho-Phenique too, Rho.  My Grandma used it as some mysterious cure for something, I can't remember.
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  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_old-wives-tales?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:ac539598-27e1-4b90-8090-df9c75b49687Post:645dd27a-1fee-4d7f-9f14-0bd748bc7f7f">Re: Old Wives' Tales</a>:
    [QUOTE]Missy, I believe it's that it's good luck to get married while the hour is waxing (3:01-3:30) verses waning (3:45-3:59). There is a similar one about you should get married before the moon is full, but never when the moon is waning. <strong>Rho, periods still are a very scary supernatural force in a lot of Native cultures. There is a lot of teaching about how it makes a woman unclean to bleed for 7 days and there are many superstitions about touching weapons, food, infants, etc. I used to participate in a local sweat lodge and you were absolutely prohibited from going in if you were on your period.</strong> I hate the death comes in 3's. Or bad things come in 3's. That one was definitely true for me. Within a period of 2 weeks one of my pets died, my g-grandma died, and my car broke down (as in, could not fix it ever broke down).
    Posted by katiewhompus[/QUOTE]

    That is true. You are also prohibited in some cultures from ceremonial dancing if it is your moon time. Katie, we had to schedule our naming ceremony (sweat included) between my sister and my period schedule when I was in 5th and she was in 7th grade. Imagine my father asking us that question.. not so comfortable. I think that is actually a good one though, because if you happen to be anemic, you can react pretty badly to the sweat lodge.

    I think this is a similarity with the orthodox Jewish (correct me if I'm wrong) tradition of separate beds for married couples during the period and 7 days after, referred to as the unclean time. That one probably also has to do with restricting sex to times when procreation is more possible.
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  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_old-wives-tales?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:ac539598-27e1-4b90-8090-df9c75b49687Post:8d7819ac-b086-44eb-9af6-750fd06a2369">Re: Old Wives' Tales</a>:
    [QUOTE]The one that is still rampant to me is that deaths come in 3's.
    Posted by Night_Sprite[/QUOTE]

    I actually believe this is true.
  • I use campho-phenique on bug bites.  I have it in my purse right now.
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  • The one about whoever falls asleep 1st on wedding night will be the 1st to die
  • I was just reading about menstrual myths. I still can't find anything about the baby boy thing. That was such an odd thing to me...

    That same family 'cured' my bee sting with vicks vapo-rub and tobacco. she unrolled a cigarette and took out the tobacco, placed it on a cotton ball with some vicks and put it on my forehead when I got stung. I think it worked. Then again, it was a minor sting--I sort of slapped the bee against my head and the stinger hit me a little moreso than the bee actually trying to sting me.
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  • So not an OWT, but one of my friends develop breast early (C or D cups in 5th grade).  One of our friends was jealous so she told her if she ate a lot of carrots her boobs would grow.  The girl ate so many carrots her skin started to change colors. 
  • I had a friend slap a wad of chewing tobacco on a wasp sting between my fingers. Nasty as hell, but it worked.

    I've got an old "folk" remedy from the Wilmington area, SOME NC-ers might know about - Astyptodyne. It is awesome stuff. Smells like PineSol, will eat the finish off furniture, but will heal a cut/scrape to a hard scab in what seems nanoseconds. Works on healing ingrown toes, too.

    Too bad it wouldn't work on my knee. Although maybe if I could talk the ortho into injecting it........
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    Do not mess in the affairs of dinosaurs because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
    I love you Missy. Even though you are not smart enough to take online quizzes to find out really important information. ~cew
  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_old-wives-tales?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:ac539598-27e1-4b90-8090-df9c75b49687Post:03064f4c-a61f-4a6e-9ef6-584d0cd128d1">Re: Old Wives' Tales</a>:
    [QUOTE]In Response to Re: Old Wives' Tales : That is true. You are also prohibited in some cultures from ceremonial dancing if it is your moon time. Katie, we had to schedule our naming ceremony (sweat included) between my sister and my period schedule when I was in 5th and she was in 7th grade. Imagine my father asking us that question.. not so comfortable. I think that is actually a good one though, because if you happen to be anemic, you can react pretty badly to the sweat lodge. I think this is a similarity with the orthodox Jewish (correct me if I'm wrong) tradition of separate beds for married couples during the period and 7 days after, referred to as the unclean time. That one probably also has to do with restricting sex to times when procreation is more possible.
    Posted by SarahPLiz[/QUOTE]

    There are definitely some days when I wouldn't mind sleeping in another bed that week. I just feel so ugh that I don't want anyone near me.

    I was so upset when they switched leaders and scheduled the sweat once a month, during the middle of my cycle. They kept asking why I stopped attending and I told the head, "Well, you schedule it for the 3rd week of the month every month, and that is my cycle so I cannot attend." He goes "Oooh so that's why so many of the women stopped attending..." Good job genius.
  • Yeah, that sucks. I always enjoyed the feed more than the sweat, but I'd go with my dad. My dad says that sweat cures everything, and I'm inclined to believe him about some things. Cool thing: He built a sweat lodge in his backyard, so he can sweat whenever he wants. Plus, when he hosts for other people, they bring tons of food and he doesn't have to cook for a week.
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  • I'm sure that HAD to have changed the campho formula. The bottle my parents had was about as old as Larry King.
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  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_old-wives-tales?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:ac539598-27e1-4b90-8090-df9c75b49687Post:148c0403-e811-40ef-b888-32f1de04d9e2">Re: Old Wives' Tales</a>:
    [QUOTE]The one about whoever falls asleep 1st on wedding night will be the 1st to die
    Posted by loop0406[/QUOTE]

    <div>I had never heard this until now. Now I'm going to be too freaked out to fall asleep!</div><div>
    </div><div>
    </div>
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  • I wish I lived near you, I loved it so much. I'm always cold so I loved being surrounded by such intense heat.

    My very first one was on the Winter Solstice. We got there around 3pm and helped set up the lodge (just wooden frame with horse blankets draped over) and had to clear out about 3 feet of snow. We went in when it was still light outside, just before dusk. We came out and it was completely black, with tons of stars and a fresh blanket of snow. It was so magical.
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