European Superstitions

Throughout The Painted Bird we see a very superstitious village. Olga caters to the many believers that are "cursed" and ill. The narrator is shown to be possessed by virtue of his eye color. Marta believes in a number of superstitions and remedies: she "cures" her pain by burying meat, she keeps the snakes dead skin, only bathes twice a year, and makes the narrator close his eyes so that he doesn't look at her. People are constantly spitting, turning, blessing themselves, and praying to avoid curses, jinxes, and bad luck.

In Europe, there are many common superstitions that I knew about, such as bad luck after breaking a mirror, knocking on wood, or opening an umbrella inside, but some interesting superstitions that I didn't know about are as follows:

1. Do not blow out a candle, if you do a sailor dies.

2. Do not store bread upside down.

3. If you whistle inside you will lose your money.

4. It is bad luck to prepare a nursery before the child's birth.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/superstition.html#cures