Superstitions: Avoid Ladders And Don’t Say The Name Of That Scottish Play
Spilling salt, Friday the 13th, sidewalk cracks and ladders all have something in common. Theyare part of a long tradition of superstitions. Superstitions are plentiful in every culture, tradition, industry and career. Baseball teams are full of beliefs and superstitions. Theatre has lively and scary superstitions. Common superstitions include bad luck the follows spilling salt or walking under a ladder. Whether bad luck comes after walking under a scaffold or scissor lift is still somewhat unclear. The origins of superstitions are interesting bits of historical fact and speculation.
Walking under a ladder is discouraged and said to be bad luck. If someone is working with a chain saw, welding torch or hydrochloric acid the bad luck could be obvious and instant. Practical considerations aside, there is a long history of superstition attached to walking under a ladder. There are several suppositions as to where this belief originates. One theory holds that the ladder forms a triangle either on its own with the ground as the bottom section or with the wall it is leaning against. In ancient Egypt the shape of a triangle was considered a magical form. It is the form of the pyramids. Walking through the shape was thought to bring bad luck. This may dishearten all the people that paid a bunch of money to put pyramid power over their beds. The Christian tradition holds the same concept in the idea of the Trinity. Walking beneath a ladder was seen as challenging the trinity and calling out to satan.
Other ideas concerning bad luck and walking under a ladder may be attributed to the plight of medieval fighters walking under ladders when trying to take a castle. Hot oil was often dropped on those climbing up a ladder and those underneath would be victims of the scalding liquid. Gallows were not always available or used for hangings. Ladders substituted in for hangings. The superstition suggests that ghosts live beneath ladders and walking through would disturb them.
Theatres and theatre life is filled with superstitions. On a stage, Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is always referred to as “That Scottish Play”. Reading lines from the play, especially back stage is said to invoke the curse. Some of the more famous incidents include; a world war II production of the play with John Geilgud in which four actors died, an 1849 riot that broke out at a performance at Astor Place in New York where 31 people died, in 1947 a young actor playing Macbeth crawled off stage and died of a stab wound. It is reported that he would not stop reciting lines in the dressing room.
The list of cursed productions is endless and provocative. Laurence Olivier was nearly killed when he was on stage playing Macbeth. A weight came hurtling down and crashed inches from him. On the first night of that production, the theatre owner had a heart attack and died. During the production the tip of Olivier’s sword broke off and hit an audience member who had a heart attack and died. There is a theory that Shakespeare used an actual witch’s spell when writing the part of the witches. Others believe he used real witches in the opening play. Other’s believe it is a play with a lot of fight scenes in dim light, making it a hazardous play to perform. Whatever the source, superstitions exist and have become a force of their own.
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