Short Stuff: Curse of Broken Mirrors

It's seven years' bad luck for you if you break a mirror, buddy, sorry. But have you ever wondered why? People have come up with all sorts of great reasons since time immemorial. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:12Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. Josh, Chuck, Jerry, not Dave, but still Dave. Let's go.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  Didn't we do a whole episode on mirrors and maybe talk about breaking mirrors?

• 1:24Josh Clark?

  There's no way we didn't talk about that, but this is definitely an exploded, expanded, really balloony version of that.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, because we're talking about the idea that if you break a mirror, if you are superstitious, a lot of people would say that brings you seven years of bad luck. And we're going to dig into why that might be.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  People have been superstitious ever since there have been people about different things and way before the mirror. And apparently, the Greeks were the first people to sort of just start talking about a reflection because the story of Narcissus falls in love with his image in the stream and drowns and dies. So because of that, the Greeks are like, maybe seeing yourself isn't such a great thing to do.

• 2:09Josh Clark?

  No. And that was Narcissus who had a tattoo, by the way.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:15Josh Clark?

  So, uh, yeah, it was bad luck to see your reflection in water. And that was pretty much the only place you could see, um, your reflection if you were in ancient Greek. Cause it wasn't until the ancient Romans came along and they said, yeah, we basically believe the same thing, but we're also incredibly vain. So we're going to invent mirrors. And eventually the, um, the mirrors that they came up with at the beginning were, um, highly polished metal surfaces. So if, if you had like an old shield sitting around, don't throw it away. You can upcycle it and do a terrific mirror.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Or I guess look at the reflection to see Medusa if you're Clash of the Titans. Wasn't that a shield?

• 2:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  How would you say the name of the person who looked at their reflection in the water?

• 2:59Josh Clark?

  Oh, I've always heard it as Narcissus, but I like how you said it. I, I'm not mocking you at all here. Okay?

• 3:05Speaker 02

  I didn't think you were.

• 3:06Josh Clark?

  Okay, good.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  I think I might be getting that pronunciation from the, uh, song from Indigo Girls.

• 3:14Josh Clark?

  Did they say Narcissus?

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. I look a lot like Narcissus.

• 3:19Josh Clark?

  I'm quite sure that at least one or both of them studied Greek mythology at UGA at some point.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Oh, maybe so. And by the way, our good friend, uh, Lucy Wainwright just got off of tour, uh, with Indigo Girls.

• 3:30Josh Clark?

  Oh, congratulations, Lucy. That's awesome. I think you told me that.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, she hit the road with them for a while and, uh, her beautiful little cute daughter, uh, was able to go on to a lot of these shows, which is always fun.

• 3:40Josh Clark?

  That's really cool.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Little, little girl on tour. That's, what can be more fun than that?

• 3:44Josh Clark?

  For sure. And to keep everybody grounded, you know?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like you, you, Indigo Girls aren't, uh, doing all those nasty drugs in front of that girl.

• 3:52Josh Clark?

  No, no, they're very well known for trashing hotel rooms too. And I bet that they did not trash any of them because of Lucy Wainwright Roach's kid.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  No, not one TV was thrown over a balcony.

• 4:03Josh Clark?

  Nope.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Where were we?

• 4:06Josh Clark?

  We were talking about shields as mirrors. Those were the first mirrors.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  That's right. That led to, you know, the idea that gods might observe their souls through these shiny reflective devices.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  So, you know, that means it has import. So to damage something like that, something like that to be broken would, at first, they thought of it as like just disrespectful. And then they said, but also maybe it would anger the gods and they would rain bad luck down upon their heads.

• 4:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And if you believe that the reflection in the mirror, your reflection, is actually you're seeing your soul, if you break a mirror, you're breaking your soul too. And so there's a couple of ways that that could bring about misfortune, apparently. One is that your soul couldn't protect your body any longer. And that's why all sorts of bad stuff befalls you for seven years. Then also, in some traditions, your soul is rather upset at having been broken and now it's looking for revenge on you. And sometimes it does that in the form of killing one of your loved ones.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:12Josh Clark?

  It's not what you want. I mean, you're already broke your very nice mirror and now your grandma died? Come on.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. And the whole seven years thing came about, apparently, because the Romans believed that life changes happen in seven year cycles. So that's where that idea comes from. Or another explanation that, I'm not sure about this one, but apparently mirrors, you know, they were pretty expensive early on and the cost of a mirror would equal seven years' work from a servant.

• 5:43Josh Clark?

  I like both of those.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. They could, maybe both are accurate.

• 5:46Josh Clark?

  So as far as the English language goes, Chuck, the first time anyone mentions breaking a mirror being bad luck was from 1777, where the author mentions that breaking a mirror is a very unlucky accident because mirrors were part of an ancient kind of divination, formerly used by magicians, and they're superstitious and diabolical operations.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  That's right. And because it became a thing in print, it became a thing in British culture. And yeah, so all of a sudden, people all over the world are not wanting to break their mirrors anymore.

• 6:20Josh Clark?

  Okay. So let's take a little break, as it were, and come back, try to put everything together by explaining what you can do to mitigate your bad luck if you do break a mirror.

• 6:49Josh Clark?

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• 7:52Josh Clark?

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• 9:10Speaker 02

  All right. Before we broke, Josh laid down a series of puns about mirror breakage. Apparently, there's some things you can do if you break your mirror. Apparently, one of the things you can do is you gotta get rid of those pieces. You don't want to leave a broken mirror lying around. Obviously, it's not a great thing just to have in your house with broken glass. But I think it has more to do with like, let's just wash ourselves of this and get it out of here as quickly as possible.

• 9:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so this is based on a House of Works article. I love how they actually are serious about telling you how to throw away a broken mirror.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, like safely.

• 9:46Josh Clark?

  You dispose of the pieces in the trash by wrapping them in paper or placing them in a cardboard box.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:51Josh Clark?

  Because sharp mirror pieces can cut through a plastic bag.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:55Josh Clark?

  That has nothing to do with superstition. That's just good household advice.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  That's right. Good old fashioned House of Works advice.

• 10:01Josh Clark?

  Another one, this seems, this automatically makes it ancient to me, is that you take the mirror pieces and you bury them. And then what makes it even more ancient is that you're better off if you bury them in the light of a full moon.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Creepy.

• 10:14Josh Clark?

  But it seems to me you'd have to do a little weighing of cost benefit of keeping the mirror pieces around until a full moon.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:23Josh Clark?

  You know, if you, especially if you broke your mirror on the new moon, then you're keeping these unlucky pieces around for a month.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:29Josh Clark?

  I don't know, man. I don't know if the full moon would mitigate that bad luck that you accrued over the month.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, agreed. I'd just get rid of it unless you were pretty close. Maybe two days within a full moon, that's my rule.

• 10:40Josh Clark?

  I think I would go two days max, too.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. All right, I'm glad we agree on that in case we ever break a mirror together. You can also grind that stuff into a powder if you want to.

• 10:51Josh Clark?

  Take it to a party.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, take it to a party. And then the old throw salt over your shoulder, over your left shoulder is a great way to get rid of any bad luck, if you believe in that kind of thing.

• 10:59Josh Clark?

  Works for everything.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:02Josh Clark?

  So we're talking mirrors, and mirrors are made from glass, but glass, non-mirrored glass, breaking it actually is used as good luck sometimes, although it can also be bad luck, too. Apparently, in England, breaking a glass is a death omen.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:16Josh Clark?

  Which means people would be dropping like flies around me because I break glasses a lot.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, you and Emily both loves to break glass.

• 11:23Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  I think the Greeks, though, you know, can be a celebratory thing, obviously, at a Greek celebration to ward off evil spirits, or anyone who's ever been to a Jewish wedding, stomping on that wine glass is one of the great traditions.

• 11:37Josh Clark?

  And then there's other mirror superstitions, too. Like, the mirror is just a superstition factory, apparently.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:44Josh Clark?

  So there are traditions where if somebody passes away, you cover the mirrors in your house with something, just to make it so no one can see the reflection. And there's a few reasons to do this. One is, the person who's died, their soul is now wandering around until they're buried. And apparently, if they see the reflection in the mirror, they get sucked into the mirror and stuck there. And you don't want that to happen to your poor grandma's soul.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  No. Or your poor grandma's mirror, because apparently that will cause the mirror to tarnish, and maybe even turn into an image of that person who is deceased.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  Now, imagine, Chuck, if you broke your mirror.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:22Josh Clark?

  It caused your grandma to die.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:25Josh Clark?

  You replaced the mirror, and your poor grandma saw, her soul saw herself in that new mirror and is trapped in it. That's a lot of bad luck.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and baggage, honestly.

• 12:37Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  You know, that's shrink territory.

• 12:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because also grandma always just told you you weren't doing anything right.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. Other people thought that demons could escape through the mirror, like go from the non-living world into the living. And so, covering a mirror if someone passes, like, there's a lot of mirror covering happening in these situations.

• 12:58Josh Clark?

  For sure. There's also some marriage stuff, too. In Edwardian Britain, which took place in the first decade of the 20th century, if you wanted to know what your future husband was going to be like, or if you'd be married at all, you could sit down in front of a mirror, some candlelight, and if you saw your husband show up in the mirror, all good. If a grim specter appeared.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 13:21Josh Clark?

  You would die before you got married.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:24Josh Clark?

  That doesn't necessarily mean that you die at 20 or something like that. It just means that you might die an old unmarried person.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. But with marriage, it could also be a good thing, because apparently, this superstition, if you, after you get married and you say, "I do," if you look into a mirror in the short time after that, you will be uniting your soul, and it creates, apparently, an alternate universe where the two souls can live forever together.

• 13:54Josh Clark?

  Very sweet.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's sweeter?

• 13:57Josh Clark?

  I don't know, there's not much sweeter.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:59Josh Clark?

  So I guess this Halloween season, we would say, go out, kiss your mirror and take very good care of it. Don't, don't you think that's good advice?

• 14:06Speaker 02

  That's right, or just cover that thing up if you don't want to take your chances.

• 14:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and of course, obviously, that means that the spooky short stuff is out.

• 14:18Speaker 06

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 14:34Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.