“Mirror, Mirror On The Wall”

by Shelly Kneupper Tucker on January 26, 2007

Out flew the web and floated wide-
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.
“The Lady of Shalott” Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Whew! I tripped on the enormous oval mirror that stands in our bedroom. Fortunately, I caught it just before it crashed. As big as that thing is, I know it would bring a curse of more than seven years of bad luck if it cracked.

As I sat down with a sigh of relief, I wondered about that silly superstition. Where did it originate and why? I began researching and reflecting on mirrors. I found so many superstitions about mirrors that I can’t see how people kept up with them.

When ancient people saw their reflections in pools of water, they thought it was a vision of their soul. They believed the soul leaves the body and enters the reflective surface. From this idea stem many of the superstitions that various cultures have had about mirrors.

When people were sleeping or ill, mirrors were covered to prevent their wandering souls from entering the glass and becoming trapped—thus causing their death. If a person died, the mirrors had to be covered to keep the dead person’s soul from entering the mirror instead of going on to the afterlife. Worse, the departed souls might snatch away any living person who was reflected in the mirror. In some cultures, a mirror or a jar of water was buried with the dead to keep their souls safely in the grave where they belonged.

Remember “Bloody Mary?” She might have been a queen who was beheaded, or perhaps a witch. “They” say she can be called from a mirror, though why anyone would want to do that, I can’t say. I also want to know who “they” are. The rituals differ, but kids for years have gone into a darkened room and stared into the mirror chanting “Bloody Mary” several hundred times. Supposedly, she will appear in the mirror. I never chanted long enough because I’m a chicken, so I don’t know that for a fact. Besides, the only Bloody Mary I care about has vodka tomato juice, and a stalk of celery… and chanting before a mirror has not yet caused one to appear for me!

Because a vampire has no soul, there is no reflection in the mirror. Perhaps that is because there are no vampires. Long ago, people believed that if you looked in a mirror and saw no reflection it meant that your death was just around the corner. Or, could it mean you are a vampire? Surely that is something you would already know.

Old wives’ tales rumored that a baby should not be allowed to look in a mirror until they were a year old. Doing so could variously stunt the child’s growth, result in crossed eyes, cause epilepsy, make the child stutter or result in early death. It’s bad luck for a cat to look in the mirror, though it will keep them occupied for hours. If anyone gazes into a mirror for too long, they are sure to see the Devil’s face staring back at them. And, I thought that was just me getting old!

Mirrors were believed to be gateways to another world, therefore were used to tell the future. The practice of “scrying,” or gazing in a mirror to divine information (remember the Queen in Snow White?) was common throughout the world for centuries. In Europe during Elizabethan and Jacobean times, scryers could be found at any fair or market. Supposedly, Queen Elizabeth’s court magician, John Dees, predicted the Gunpowder Plot to kill King James in 1605 just by looking in the mirror. If you believe that, I have a bridge you might be interested in purchasing.

Another superstition is that a woman could look into a mirror while eating an apple and brushing her hair to see the face of her future husband over her shoulder. I’m not making this up. Or, she could go out on night of a full moon with a mirror. She must stand on a stone on which she has never stood and look into the mirror with her back to the moon. She might see the real moon and many smaller moons. If she counted how many moons she saw in the mirror, it told her how many years until she would marry. I’m presuming a lot of brides got married in one year.

Actors and actresses supposedly believe it is bad luck to have a mirror on the stage. I’m not sure why. But, then actors and actresses have so many superstitions to remember that it’s amazing they can remember any lines.

Any couples who meet after seeing one another in a mirror are destined to be together. However, a bride who sees her reflection in full wedding regalia on her wedding day will have an unhappy marriage. Once safely married, if a bride and groom gaze at each other in the mirror they will live happily ever after.

That “seven years of bad luck” superstition may have originated with the ancient Romans. They believed that life renewed itself every seven years. Breaking a mirror was “breaking one’s health,” and it wouldn’t be renewed for seven years.

On the upside, that curse can be overcome in several ways. You can avert bad luck by grinding all the glass shards to dust so they can never reflect anything again, or wash the broken pieces in a south running river so the bad luck flows away, or bury the bits and pieces deeply on sacred ground under a full moon. Better yet, don’t break the mirror in the first place.

I’m glad I’m not superstitious. Although I would consider that it would be bad luck to believe in those tales.