Safehold Superstitions

I was thinking about the Pirates of the Caribbean movie and remembered several scenes where the pirate sailors did a little something to avoid bad luck, and I remembered other little superstitions sailors had/have. Such as no whistling, women are bad luck, spitting/throwing salt to avoid/avert bad luck and so on. What superstitions do Safeholders have? Sailors and landsmen? There's a large variety of cultures now and nearly 900 years for any new ones to have developed. So I was wondering what do they have now? Did any make it through the re-education process on the trip from Earth?

While I don't remember any textdev on the subject, I would think that they don't have any superstitions. IMHO, the Writ has told them how to act, how to think and what to beleive for so long that any thing like what we think of as a superstition would be just like Sham-Wei worship to them.
Most, if not all, of our suoerstitions are about how to avoid bad luck or happenings. The Writ tells you what to avoid in the various books, like the Proscriptions or the Book of Pasquale, to avoid bad things. How can you have bad luck or need a superstition if you follow the Writ?

Bill

Humans are humans. I suspect that superstitions will appear as they always have throughout history. OK so we don't leave milk out for brownies anymore but what about all the people who buy flight insurance to insure that the plane won't crash? Or believe that 13 is unlucky?

Probably the devout will deride them as unfaithful, the urbanites will deride them as ignorance seen in "country bumpkins" etc etc. Similar to the way they are treated today on earth. I doubt the church will be able to stamp them out completely or would even want to. I can see it taking action when in a fundamentalist phase or when the superstitions become to public, but not as a general policy they are just too pervasive and generally too harmless to draw much of the church's attention on a routine basis.

Agree.

One superstition that might develop is the "break a leg" greeting used in the performing arts.

IE averting disaster by "wishing" for disaster.

biochem wrote:Humans are humans. I suspect that superstitions will appear as they always have throughout history. OK so we don't leave milk out for brownies anymore but what about all the people who buy flight insurance to insure that the plane won't crash? Or believe that 13 is unlucky?

Probably the devout will deride them as unfaithful, the urbanites will deride them as ignorance seen in "country bumpkins" etc etc. Similar to the way they are treated today on earth. I doubt the church will be able to stamp them out completely or would even want to. I can see it taking action when in a fundamentalist phase or when the superstitions become to public, but not as a general policy they are just too pervasive and generally too harmless to draw much of the church's attention on a routine basis.

biochem wrote:Humans are humans. I suspect that superstitions will appear as they always have throughout history. OK so we don't leave milk out for brownies anymore but what about all the people who buy flight insurance to insure that the plane won't crash? Or believe that 13 is unlucky?

Probably the devout will deride them as unfaithful, the urbanites will deride them as ignorance seen in "country bumpkins" etc etc. Similar to the way they are treated today on earth. I doubt the church will be able to stamp them out completely or would even want to. I can see it taking action when in a fundamentalist phase or when the superstitions become to public, but not as a general policy they are just too pervasive and generally too harmless to draw much of the church's attention on a routine basis.

That was my thought. It's been nearly a thousand years since the landing, more than long enough for superstitions to have developed to one degree or another. Some would have come into being, just look at the differences between nations like Charis and the Republic of Siddarmark, the Desnairian empire, the Harchong Empire. The cultures in all of those are very different. From enlightened monarchy/parliamentary republics with a happy and relatively free to express themselves populace, to despot corrupt imperial bureaucracies where the common folk are slaves and kept stupid and ignorant. With that much change from the same starting point all of Safehold had, some things would have changed and .. evolved. >_>

DrakBibliophile wrote:Agree.

One superstition that might develop is the "break a leg" greeting used in the performing arts.

IE averting disaster by "wishing" for disaster.

Somewhere in OAR(?) there's a line as to how Safeholdian theatre has a "A bad dress rehearsal is the best guarantee of a good performance" belief.

Well, about 30 minutes after posting my reply above, I find an example of superstition. The Captain of the first ironclad river boat "knocks on wood" planking for luck as he starts the Great Canal Raid.

=2014/07/16=
Hi Guys

IIRC, there are thirteen steps in a gallows structure.

??I wonder if Safeholdians know why thirteen is considered unlucky??

R
.

kbus888 wrote:=2014/07/16=
Hi Guys

IIRC, there are thirteen steps in a gallows structure.

??I wonder if Safeholdians know why thirteen is considered unlucky??

R
.

Probably because some "angel" told them so.

Hey, they hung around for some 300 years. Who knows what little tidbits of Old Earth culture got passed on unintentionally?

IIRC, the head of Charis' University noticed that some idle comments and turns of phrase made by Angels started making sense once he started playing with Arabic numerals. That's likely just the tip of the iceberg.

David Weber has said that some "stories" (ie fictional stories) exist on Safehold because some Archangels shared their own favorite stories to mortals.

IIRC this came up when people wondered about the mention of centaurs in the books.

Centaurs don't exist on Safehold and aren't part of the Theology but stories about centaurs come from Archangels telling mortals stories about them.

evilauthor wrote:

kbus888 wrote:=2014/07/16=
Hi Guys

IIRC, there are thirteen steps in a gallows structure.

??I wonder if Safeholdians know why thirteen is considered unlucky??

R
.

Probably because some "angel" told them so.

Hey, they hung around for some 300 years. Who knows what little tidbits of Old Earth culture got passed on unintentionally?

IIRC, the head of Charis' University noticed that some idle comments and turns of phrase made by Angels started making sense once he started playing with Arabic numerals. That's likely just the tip of the iceberg.