NEW YEAR SUPERSTITIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

NEW YEAR SUPERSTITIONS.

Around the passing of the Old Year and the birth of the New Year many superstitions have gathered. Right back into early times we find quaint beliefs and customs, mostly concerned with the settling up of the Old Year's accounts and preparing with clean sheets for the New Year. To-day the belief still holds good that if the first person to visit a house on New Year's Day is a dark man, good luck will be the result, but if a fair man or a woman, misfortune will visit the household during the year. It was an old belief that some work of some kind had of necessity t6 be done on New Year's Day if good luck was to. fall upon a household. On the other hand, certain kinds of work should not be attempted. For instance, a' house must not be swept out after twelve on New Year's Eve lest thereby the good luck which the New Year has brought should be swept away. Neither dared those of old to knit, spin, weave or fish.

Who knits, With sorrow sits ; Who spins, Adds three to her sins ; Who weares, The Virgin grieves ; Who nets, God forgets; Who fishes. .Against Heaven wishes. Neither must a housewife wash on New Year's Day, for should she do so she is believed to wash out the existence of some member of her family. The making of New Year resolutions, which unfortunately no one ever keeps, is a habit which has survived to modern days.