Johnny Cash sang “love is a burning thing” while Tina Turner asked the question: “what’s love got to do with it?”
Love can be a strange thing. It can make you smile. It can reduce you to tears. It can be there one day and not the next.
Here are a few superstitions* about love which claim to reveal the person you are meant to spend the rest of your life with…
The daisy rhyme
Ah, we remember this from when we were at school (all those years ago). You get a daisy and start pulling the petals off, alternating between the phrases “he loves me” and “he loves me not.” If the final petal lands on “he loves me”, then it appears you are meant to be.
Names under your pillow
For this one you have to write three names (three love interests) on three pieces of paper. Throw them up in the air in a dark room. Feel for one and put it under your pillow. In the morning, check to see which name you picked. (We’re not sure why you can’t look right away… or why you’d have three love interests… or why you’d throw your arms around in the dark looking for a piece of paper – surely that’s a safety hazard and a waste of time?!)
Wedding cake
This is definitely the strangest one! It seems that, back in the day, people believed that you would dream of your future husband by placing wedding cake under your pillow. We believe that the only thing that will happen is you’ll have to clean your sheets the next morning… unless of course we dream of Hugh Jackman or Tom Hardy, in which case it is definitely true.
The ring test (that is used to determine everything)
Take a photograph of the person you love. Take a ring, tie it to a piece of string and hold it over the picture. If it moves in a circle you’ll apparently get married. If it moves back and forward, you probably won’t. If you’re already married and it moves back and forward, this is clearly a flawed test.
Horsing around
Another superstition is that the first unmarried man that you shake hands with, after counting 50 white horses, will be the man you will spend the rest of your life with. Our main problem with this one is seeing one white horse, never mind 50! Also, if he shakes our hands when we first meet, we’re not sure he’s husband material.
(*We wouldn’t recommend making any rash decisions or getting into any arguments based on these but they are a lot of fun.)
