The king of hearts is called the suicide king because the king appears to be stabbing himself in the head. The jack of spades and jack of hearts are known as one-eyed jacks because their faces are in profile and only one eye is visible. But do you know why the nine of diamonds is called the curse of Scotland? Did you even know that it’s considered to be the most unlucky card in the deck? It is, though how it received its fearsome name is a source of wild speculation.

[Image credit: Flickr user feministjulie]

Here are eight leading theories on why the nine of diamonds is called the curse (or scourge) of Scotland. Some are more plausible than others, but all of them are highly intriguing.

1. British Commander William Augustus, the “Butcher Duke of Cumberland” was a lover of card games and always carried two packs on his person. After his decisive victory in the Battle of Culloden, he quickly scribbled an execution order for his Scottish prisoners on the closest paper he had at hand. The paper turned out to be—you guessed it—the nine of diamonds, a card that haunts the Scots to this day.

[Prince William, the “Butcher Duke” of Cumberland]

2. In the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, A notorious jewel thief by the name of George Campbell snuck into Edinburgh Castle and successfully heisted nine valuable diamonds. He then escaped to a neighboring country, never to be heard from again. Queen Mary responded by levying a heavy tax upon her kingdom to replace the gems. The hapless tax-payers have ever since had negative opinions about the nine missing diamonds and have vented their frustration by renaming the nine of diamonds playing card, the curse of Scotland.

[Image credit: Flickr user afternoon_sunlight]

3. Comete, a card game inspired by the discovery of Halley’s comet was introduced to Scotland by James II. To win the game, one needed to secure the nine of diamonds. It is said that the card was called the curse of Scotland on account of the large sums of money that Scottish gamers lost when first learning this new game.

The Cross (or Corse) of Scotland

4. Though the nine diamonds in today’s playing cards are arranged in an H pattern, early versions favoured an X shape. When viewed sideways, these cards look very similar to the Scottish flag—known as St. Andrew’s Cross or the Cross of Scotland. It’s very possible that the original name of the card was actually the Cross of Scotland.

5. Pope Joan was a popular card-based gambling game played as far back as 1732. In the game, special significance is paid to the nine of diamonds which is called the pope. Because the pope was a villain figure among Scotch reformers, the nine of diamonds was renamed the curse of Scotland in this game and—eventually—all games played in Scotland.

[An early political cartoon from 1745 uses the nine of diamonds to represent the pope. The card can be seen (just barely) on the ground between the legs of the central figure)]

6. Just as there’s a supposed curse involving U.S. presidents elected in years evenly divisible by twenty, so too is there an observation that every ninth English monarch reigns as a tyrant. Because diamonds represent royalty, the nine of diamonds is said to be a symbol of the English rulers that have been oppressing the Scottish people since the dark ages.

The Dalrymple shield

7. John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair was a Scottish lowland noble who had some beef with the Highland MacDonald clan. He successfully convinced King William to sign an order to extirpate (ie. “root out and destroy”) the clan in a heinous event known as the Massacre of Glencoe. The Scottish citizens were outraged, especially when King William absolved both himself and the Earl of any wrongdoing. The Dalrymple coat of arms features nine diamonds arranged like the playing card, so it is very likely that the nine of diamonds became associated with the much-hated Dalrymple.

8. Nine red diamonds (or lozenges gules presented saltire-wise as the arrangement is called in heraldry) are also said to be featured prominently on the crests of other detested figures in Scotland’s past. Among them are a colonel named Packer who was on the scaffold when Charles the First was beheaded, the Duke of Argyle who helped unite Scotland with England, and a member of the Scottish parliament who voted for the introduction of the malt tax. Bottom line: don’t go taxing a Scotsman’s malt.

Which (if any) of the above explanations is the correct one? Nobody can say for certain, but what is known, if you’re playing Go Fish with a Scotsman you should do your best not to win the game by asking for his nine of diamonds—you don’t want to give the Scots any more reasons to view the card so unfavourably.

Anemia is a serious problem in Cambodia, leading to birth defects and impaired brain development. Chris Charles, a graduate student at the University of Guelph in Canada, was trying to persuade villagers there to increase the amount of iron in their diet. A simple solution would be to stir chunks of iron inside cooking pots, but Charles encountered serious resistance to this idea. His solution, which gained broad acceptance, was to shape the iron like a local fish considered lucky:

“We designed it about 3 or 4 inches long, small enough to be stirred easily but large enough to provide up to about 75 per cent of the daily iron requirement,” said Charles. They found a local scrap metal worker who could make them for $1.50 each, and so far they have been reusing the fish roughly three years.

“We’re getting fantastic results; there seems to be a huge decrease in anemia and the village women say they feel good, no dizziness, fewer headaches. The iron fish is incredibly powerful.”

Link -via @MarilynTerrell | Photo: Christopher Charles

Link Via Consumerist Image Via doncav [Flickr]

Friday The Thirteenth

The fear of Friday the thirteenth and the fear of the number thirteen are both so common that they each even have their own psychological names, paraskevidekatiaphobia and triskaidekaphobia, respectively. But who ever decided that one number is unluckier than any other or why it’s particularly bad for the thirteenth day of the month to happen to fall on a Friday? As it turns out, there are a lot of reasons behind the superstitions surrounding the mystical number.

In Christianity, there were thirteen people at the Last Supper, including Judas who has been rumored as being the last person to sit at the table. In Viking lore, Loki was the thirteenth god and in the story of Norna-Gest, when uninvited guests showed up at an infant’s birthday party, bringing the number of guests up to thirteen, the last of the guests cursed the child. Even ancient Persians were weary of the number thirteen because they believed the twelve constellations of the Zodiac would each rule the earth for a thousand years, but after the cycle ended (in the thirteenth millennia), the sky and earth would collapse into chaos.

Interestingly, the fear of Friday the thirteenth is actually a relatively recent development. In fact, historians have found no evidence that anyone ever had talked about “Friday the thirteenth” until the 19^th century and the earliest mention of the evils of the date were seen in an 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini. Even then, the myth didn’t really get going until the 20^th century, when Thomas W. Lawson’s novel Friday, the Thirteenth became a best seller. After the book became a household name, so did the stories about how unlucky the day was.

In reality, the idea of Friday the thirteenth being unlucky is most likely a result of the fact that both Fridays and the number thirteen are both considered unlucky. Friday has been considered unlucky since at least the 14^th century, as Chaucer mentioned the superstition in The Canterbury Tales. The most likely reason for people to consider Fridays unlikely is that according to scripture, Jesus was crucified on a Friday. It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to imagine that people decided that if Fridays are unlucky and the number thirteen is unlucky, then any time the thirteenth occurs of the Friday, it’s really unlucky.

The fear of Friday the thirteenth is still very common. In fact, around 19 million Americans are affected by a fear of the day and many are so scared that they refuse to leave their house on Friday the thirteenth. Accordingly, the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that businesses lose around $850 million ever time the date rolls around on the calendar.

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2

Images Via W.J.Pilsak [Flickr] and wiccked [Flickr]

Breaking A Mirror Causes Seven Years Bad Luck

When I was a kid, I was told that this superstition came about because in medieval times it would cost an average person seven years to save enough money to buy a mirror. As it turns out, this is bull hockey and the origin of the superstition is a lot more spiritual and a lot older than the one I was told.

The Romans were the first people to create glass mirrors. They also believed that their invention had the potential to steal part of the soul of the person using it. If a person’s reflection were distorted while using a mirror, then their soul would be corrupted and trapped as a result. Fortunately, the Romans believed your soul could be renewed –after seven years time. Until that point though, the person would suffer from bad luck since they did not have a whole, healthy soul to fight off evil.

If a person wanted to shed their bad luck a little sooner, there were a few methods to free your soul including grinding all the pieces of the mirror into a fine dust or burying the pieces under a tree during a full moon. While these options seem a little challenging, they still seem way easier than waiting seven full years to get your soul renewed.

Source

Image Via eeekays photography [Flickr]

Knock On Wood

Here’s one that never made sense to me. After all, how is taping on wood going to prevent you from jinxing yourself? As it turns out, the logic behind the superstition makes a lot of sense when you learn the beliefs of those who originated it.

This expression comes from Pagans, who believed that all living materials were imbued with spiritual properties, including trees. When they were cut down though, the spirit inside the tree would die and become hollow. It was at this point that evil spirits, like sprites, could take over the item and concoct ways to ruin the plans and hopes of people in the area. Fortunately, if someone knocked on the wood, it would drive away the malevolent spirits and prevent any potential misfortunes from occurring.

Source

Image Via Larry He’s So Fine [Flickr]

Black Cats

While most Western cultures consider black cats to be bad luck, many areas of the UK consider them to be a good omen. In fact, it’s likely because the Pagan groups from these areas considered them to be good luck for so long that early Christians started spreading stories of the cats being evil. Specifically, these stories often tied black cats to witches, which makes a lot of sense given that they also accused Pagans of being witches.

Source

Image Via DrL [Wikipedia]

Walking Under A Ladder

This has always seemed like the most rational of the more common superstitions. After all, if you walk under a ladder, you’re pretty likely to have something fall on your head from the top of the ladder. But that’s not the only reason that walking under a ladder is considered to be unlucky.

As it turns out, early Christians felt the triangle was a sacred sign that represented the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When a ladder was pushed against a building, it would form the shape of a triangle, and thus, by walking under it, you were breaking the triangle. This was such a bad thing to do that early Christians would often label anyone who walked under a ladder to be a witch in league with Satan –and that could be even more dangerous than having a hammer fall on your head.

Source

Image Via Alastair Thompson [Flickr]

Throwing Salt Behind Your Shoulder

Most people know that it has historically been considered bad luck to spill salt, largely because it was considered so valuable in olden times. There is also a story that says Judas spilled salt at the Last Supper, making the act even more unlucky. That being said, it seems strange to remedy the bad luck by throwing more precious salt behind your left shoulder. There is a reason for that, though. That’s because in olden times, it was frequently said that the devil was always sitting just behind your left shoulder. When you wasted something as valuable as salt, it was important to keep the devil at bay by either blinding him by throwing salt in his eyes or by placating him by giving him an offering of salt. Whether you’re trying to hurt the devil or buy him off, it seems that throwing salt in his direction is a good way to get him off your back.

Source

Image Via Domiriel [Flickr]

Lucky Rabbit’s Foot

If you’ve ever thought it was a bit gruesome to carry around the foot of a rabbit for good luck, consider the fact that some cultures say the rabbit’s foot is actually the foot of a dead witch who was killed while in her familiar form.

Interestingly, rabbits feet have been a symbol of good luck since at least 600 BC when Celtic people in England would kill rabbits possessing certain attributes that were seen as beneficial to the bearer of the lucky charm. While there is no documented evidence to show one way or another how this tradition got started, some folklorists believe it was started by the pre-Celtic hunter clans who introduced young males to hunting by sending them out to catch a rabbit. On their first successful attempt, one of the rabbit’s hind feet would be removed and awarded to the boy in a ceremony that celebrated his journey into manhood.

Source

Image Via Sobebunny [Wikipedia]

Do you believe in any superstitions? If so, were they included here? I know plenty of our readers are from other countries, so if your culture has some interesting myths you know Americans have never heard of, I know I’m not the only one who would love to hear what you have to share.

Previously at Neatorama: Seven Strange Lucky Charms

There are countless superstitions involving cats, most of them focused on the bad luck that they supposedly bring. In Japan and other Asian countries, however, the cat is a symbol of good fortune.

THE BECKONING CAT

If you’ve ever walked in to a Chinese or Japanese business and noticed a figure of a cat with an upraised paw, you’ve met Maneki Neko (pronounced MAH-ne-key NAY-ko). “The Beckoning Cat” is displayed to invite good fortune, a tradition that began with a legendary Japanese cat many centuries ago.

Naotaka Ii

According to legend, that cat, called Tama, lived in a poverty-stricken temple in 17th-century Tokyo. The temple priest often scolded Tama for contributing nothing to the upkeep of the temple. Then one day, a powerful feudal lord named Naotaka Ii was caught in a rainstorm near the temple while returning home from a hunting trip. As the lord took refuge under a big tree, he noticed Tama with her paw raised, beckoning to him, inviting him to enter the temple’s front gate. Intrigued, the lord decided to get a closer look at this remarkable cat. Suddenly, the tree was struck by lightning and fell on the exact spot where Naotaka had just been standing. Tama had saved his life! In gratitude, Naotaka made the little temple his family temple and became its benefactor. Tama and the priest never went hungry again. After a long life, Tama was buried with great respect at the renamed Goutokuji temple. Goutokuji still exists, housing dozens of statues of Beckoning Cat.

Gotokuji temple still has a calico cat, as well as many Maneki Nekos.

(Image credit: Flickr user Shoko Muraguchi)

LUCKY CHARMS

Figures of Maneki Neko became popular in Japan under shogun rule in the 19th century. At that time, most “houses of amusement” (brothels) and many private homes had a good-luck shelf filled with lucky charms, many in the shape of male sexual organs. When Japan began to associate with Western countries in the 1860s, the charms began to be seen as vulgar. In an effort to modernize Japan and improve its image, Emperor Meiji outlawed the production, sale, and display of phallic talismans in 1872. People still wanted lucky objects, however, so the less controversial Maneki Neko figures became popular.

Nang Kwak

Eventually the image of the lucky cat spread to China and then to Southeast Asia. How popular did the Beckoning Cat become? In Thailand, the ancient goddess of prosperity, Nang Kwak, was traditionally shown kneeling with a money bag on her lap. Now she’s usually shown making the cat’s raised-hand gesture and occasionally sporting a cat’s tail.

In Europe and North America, images of Maneki Neko can be found in Asian-owned businesses, such as Chinese restaurants. And back in Japan, a new cat icon adorns clothing, toys, and various objects: Hello Kitty -a literal translation of Maneki Neko, or “Beckoning Cat.”

MANEKI NEKO FACTS

* Sometime Maneki Neko has his left paw up, sometimes the right. The left paw signifies that the business owner is inviting in customers. The right invites in money or good fortune.

* Most Maneki Nekos are calico cats; the male calico is so rare it’s considered lucky in Japan. But Maneki Neko may be white, black, red, gold, or pink to ward off illness, bad luck, or evil spirits and bring financial success, good luck, health, and love.

* Maneki Nekos made in Japan show the palm of the paw, imitating the manner in which Japanese people beckon. American Maneki Nekos show the back of the paw, reflecting the way we gesture “come here.”

* The higher Maneki Neko holds his paw, the more good fortune is being invited.

___________________

The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!

A Bean By Any Other Name

Because beans are grown all throughout the world, it’s common for certain species to have multiple names. In fact, at least 11 types of beans have four names or more and certain species like the fava bean and navy bean have over 10 names. Other names for the fava bean include broad bean, butter bean, Windsor bean, horse bean, English bean, fool, foul, ful, feve, faba, haba and habas. The navy bean is also known as Yankee bean, white pea bean, pearl haricot, Boston bean, Boston navy bean, pea bean, haricot blanc bean, small white bean, haricot bean and fagioli. You may have thought you never tried a type of bean and actually just heard one of its alternate names.
Source

Beans Kick It Old School
These fruits are one of the longest plants to be cultivated by humans. Broad beans have been planted and grown since at least ancient Egypt and common beans were harvested over six thousand years ago in the Americas. Most of the beans we eat fresh come from the Americas and were first discovered by Christopher Columbus.
Source

They Really Are Somewhat Magical

Or at least, magical enough to be involved in folklore. There are multiple folk tales that involve magical beans growing all the way into the clouds –the most famous of these is, of course, Jack and The Beanstalk. There is also a Grimm’s fairytale that describes a bean that laughs at the failure of others so hard that its sides actually split open.
Source

They’re Often Considered Lucky
Multiple cultures associate eating or planting beans on certain days with good luck. Certain areas of Europe consider it to be lucky to plant beans on Good Friday. In Nicaragua, newly weds eat a bowl of beans for good luck. New Year’s Day involves a number of superstitions, in the Southern U.S., Malta, Brazil and Italy eating beans or lentils is considered to bring increased prosperity in the next year.
Source

Attack of the Killer Beans

Certain beans, especially those that are red in color, contain harmful toxins that can only be removed through cooking. Strangely, eating these beans when they are undercooked may be more toxic than eating the beans raw. Sometimes the undercooked beans will still taste and smell fine though. The toxicity will usually not result in death, but in severe nausea and diarrhea.
Source

Ever Wonder What Makes Them So ‘Musical?’
It’s widely known that beans and cabbage can make you fart. The reason is that many beans have the same sugar molecules found in cabbage. Because a certain enzyme that humans don’t have in their body is needed to digest these molecules, bacteria in the large intestine digest the sugar. This digestion produces increased gases as a byproduct. Soaking the beans in water for a few hours can help reduce this problem, so will the induction of certain other enzymes, like those found in Beano.
Source

Hold the Beans Please

The followers of Pythagoras had a lot of dietary restrictions, on top of being vegetarian, they also refused to eat beans. The reason is unclear, but many people believe it was due to flatulence, while others believe it was because they look like female genitalia. The most commonly accepted reason though is that the beans and humans were said to be created from the same material.
Source

If you thought a four-leaf clover was lucky, check out this thing: it’s a 56-leaf clover. The clover was found by Japanese farmer and clover expert Shigeo Obara, featured previously on Neatorama. That’s a lot of clover leaves – enough luck for a whole village!

Link – via observationsofanerd

(image credit: Kyodo News)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by mattphunkadellic.

In a strange traditional ceremony, two 7 year-old girls in Tamil Nadu, India were married off to two frogs.

The ceremony, an annual feature during the Pongal (harvest) festival, is conducted “to prevent the outbreak of mysterious diseases in the village”.

The girls, Vigneswari and Masiakanni, dressed up in traditional bridal finery — gilded sarees and gold jewelery — married the frog ‘princes’ in separate, elaborate ceremonies at two different temples in the presence of hundreds of villagers.

These are two frogs that will not be turning into fairytale princes, they actually got released back into temple ponds after the ceremony. I wonder if the girls are still allowed to get married when they grow up.

Link Image Via Somegl [Flickr]

I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.

Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research and over the years, have been interviewed by me. I have monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments. The results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune. Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not.

I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: ‘Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $50′.

This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.

Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.

Link | Richard Wiseman‘s official website | His book: The Luck Factor

No director in history knows more about compromise than Terry Gilliam. Part and parcel of being a visionary is being constantly told you can’t get the shot. Forces of Darkness conspire to defeat you, often in the form of studio executives, sometimes in the form of Nature herself.

Right now, they have a great post documenting many of the challenges Gilliam has faced, from 1977′s Jabberwocky all the way through next year’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which was dramatically affected by the tragic death of Heath Ledger (Ledger was slated to portrayed one of the film’s main characters). I can’t imagine the fortitude it takes for a man like Gilliam, who’s suffered countless setbacks, to keep pressing forward. I’d like to think that the visions he has for his movies prevent him from stopping.

Link