Episode 17 - Misfortune and Mirrors

You finally found the house. It was a difficult search, but eventually… it was just right. It was old, but well-kept. Cozy, but not too small.

It had taken time, but finally, the papers were signed, and you were able to move into your new home.

The place was empty, all its furniture gone. Except for one thing.

The old mirror was left, hanging in its place in the hallway. It was a massive (and if you were honest) ugly thing. But still, you liked something about it.

So, you didn’t have the movers take it when they offered to cart it away. You kept it right there.

Where it was, your reflection would emerge clearly when you reached the top of the stairs or when you walked down the hallway and otherwise existed only as a flitting thing at the corner of your vision.

People have seen their reflections in the natural world since there have been people to look.

In ponds and rivers and still waters we saw ourselves. Eventually, we learned to manufacture our own reflectives.

We learned to manufacture mirrors.

The first mirrors were made of volcanic glass and polished stone. They were being manufactured as early as 6000 years ago in Turkey.

Quickly, these were improved to metals. The Ancient Egyptians made mirrors of polished copper, Ancient Mesopotamians made metal mirrors, and mirrors of stone were found in Central and South America as early as 4000 years ago.

Almost immediately after the creation of metal and glass mirrors, superstitions began to arise from them.

It was believed that the reflection was associated with the soul. And of course, where the soul is involved, we create all sorts of superstitions, rules, and stories.

Our reflections can carry so much meaning. They are an artifact of ourselves that we often take for granted.

Once, seeing your own reflection would have been more rare. Something special. And so, it became important in ways beyond the bounds of our understanding.

The reflection, you see, it holds our soul or maybe it is our soul.

Either way, it is a piece of us. It only makes sense that shattering that reflection would have consequences.

I am Andrew Eagle, and today I invite you to join me as we explore a common superstition, the belief that shattering a mirror brings misfortune.

So, follow me as we pass Through the Veil.

A few weeks later, you are moving in the last of your new furniture.

The house has really begun to feel like home. You are carrying a particularly unwieldy couch when you begin to lose your balance and lean hard into the wall to catch yourself.

The corner of the couch hits the edge of the mirror hard and the hall is filled with a resounding cracking sound.

The mirror does not shatter. But the right edge grows a spider web of cracks that runs from halfway up all the way to the bottom corner.

It could have been much worse, certainly, but you are sad to have damaged the mirror. You think maybe it can be salvaged in some way, but more than likely it would end up as junk.

Mirrors have always been surrounded by folk stories and superstitions. But why is breaking a mirror worth seven years of bad luck?

That particular belief seems to come from the Romans. They believed that a person took seven years to fully rejuvenate their life.

Thus, breaking a mirror would curse them until such time as their life had fully renewed.

The idea was that a person’s soul was reflected in the mirror, as much as their body, and that in breaking the mirror a person’s very soul was damaged.

It would take seven years to refresh their soul, the same as the body, and in that time, their injured spirit would not be able to protect them from the influence of evil spirits and the misfortune that followed them.

The idea of bad luck from a broken mirror in general is not limited to the Ancient Romans. Russian folklore suggests that breaking a mirror releases evil spirits to haunt the one responsible. In Switzerland, stories claim that the impact of the bad luck was determined by the size of the shards. Small pieces, and the bad luck will be small to match. Large pieces, and even death could be eminent.

There are also a number of stories from India and Russia that suggest that after the mirror is broken is far more dangerous, for seeing your reflection in broken shards brought the actual misfortune.

You have decided to move the mirror. Cracks and all. It doesn’t feel right to leave it at the top of the stairs.

You decide to move it to the entryway. Even damaged, you liked the thing, and you want people who come to your home to see it.

The mirror is large, and awkward to carry, but not as heavy as you expected. The old frame and all the glass lift from the wall with a small effort.

You begin carefully down the stairs. The first set of stairs pass without problems. When you reach the landing, you set the mirror down to adjust your grip on the frame.

Halfway there.

You lift the mirror again, and take the first step, when your foot catches on something. The trip isn’t enough to send you tumbling down the steps, thankfully. The mirror was less fortunate. It launches from your grasp, flipping through the air.

It lands hard, the frame bouncing once. The glass shattering. It seems like hundreds of pieces of mirrored glass scatter across the ground.

You were lucky, you supposed, that you weren’t superstitious. If you were, you’d have a lot to fear from the next seven years.

As with many superstitions and curses, people developed a number of counter-practices that could allow someone to counteract or deflect the bad luck from a shattered mirror.

For example, the one who broke the mirror could take the broken pieces and grind them to dust. The goal was that they could never reflect anything again. If you did so, the bad luck would be dispersed.

Another superstition suggests that the broken pieces may be surrounded by seven white candles which should be blown out in a single breath at midnight after the mirror is broken.

The Romans believed that you could avoid the bad luck by burying the broken pieces deep underground. If you did so, the luck would be trapped there along with the pieces, unable to reach you.

One story that has its roots in the practices of early American slaves suggests that placing the broken shards in a south running stream would wash away the bad luck in seven hours.

Bad luck is a common theme in superstition, and among the most common culprits is the shattering of a mirror.

So, while you or I may not put much stock in the idea, I urge you to take a moment to reflect the next time you are in front of a mirror.

Such a simple thing, that many of us take for granted, used to hold such power that it could condemn someone to nearly a decade-long curse.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Through the Veil. I hope you enjoyed. I encourage you to subscribe to receive new episodes weekly wherever you listen as we continue our exploration of folklore and superstition.

If you are enjoying the show, and have subjects you would like to hear covered, please email me at throughtheveilpodcast@gmail.com or reach out on Twitter, you can find me @ThroughVeil.

As always, thank you, for listening.