Oh I love this one! I'm of Jewish/Romanian descent, my grandmother was an immigrant from there... so I was raised with a lot of superstitions! Just to clarify... I don't believe/do all of these...
Never put a hat on the bed... bad luck. (yeah, I guess this one makes sense)
Never open an umbrella inside... bad luck. (this one seems to make sense too)
We did the salt over the left shoulder thing too, Lyn! (doesn't make sense, but I do this one)
My grandmother believed in the "evil eye"... someone could put a "curse" on you. The phrase...
"keyn anhoreh" (pronounced "ken-ahora") meaning "no evil eye". If someone compliments you on something, such as "your fingernails look pretty", you have to knock on wood (yeah, I do this one sometimes), or your nails will surely break. And the person giving the compliment is supposed to say "keyn anhoreh" and spit over their shoulder..(NO, I don't do this one, but my grandma did...) I looked this one up on the web, and evidently it is common in other cultures as well.... http://www.oldsuperstitions.com/index.php?query=evil+eye&submit=Go
All of my grandbabies are of hispanic descent, and this is similar to a hispanic superstition, if someone compliments your baby, they must touch the baby or he/she will become ill. If the baby becomes ill, it can be cured by rubbing an egg on their forehead and breaking the egg and putting it in a glass of water.
If you are speaking of someone who has died and someone sneezes, you have to pull the sneezer's ear (up), or they will/might die, too. Babies really hate this one! (I ALWAYS do this one and it REALLY annoys my family lol).
A common one in my religion (Judaism).. If you have been to a cemetary, you MUST wash your hands off with water before entering a home (yours or anyone else's)... don't bring death into the house! (yeah I do this one too)
Of course, we also had the regular ones... break a mirror, seven years bad luck (don't really believe this one); black cat crossing your path (don't believe this one either), bad luck; walking under a ladder (I doubt if you could find many a/p people who would do this one), bad luck.
That's all I can think of right now...
Cool new idea for a thread, Lyn!!!!
Luvs ya,
Bear