Ever wonder where popular superstitions trotted out for Halloween come from? We put our online researcher on it and he came up with surprising results! You probably THINK you know the answer, but it turns out that most of the explanations are myths themselves! Be prepared to be surprised (and maybe even a little spooked).

  • Black cats have been good luck in many pagan religions such as ancient Egypt and pre-Christian Scotland. That prompted Pope Gregory IX to declare cats evil assistants to the devil in 1232.
  • If you're afraid of Friday the 13th you're a Paraskevidekatriaphobics. Surprisingly, even though the legend dates back to the Knights Templar, people weren't really superstitious about it until the 1800s. The legend was kind of invented by "the media" (books, magazines and newspapers). This is the version of the story you've likely heard:

But Wikipedia doesn't buy that story. It says that explanation emerged at the same time as all the others in the 1800s and early 1900s. So any historical explanation is likely as good as another, but the real answer is "the media" created the legend of Friday the 13th.

Another article explained the bad health originates from the fact that a mirror could trap a part of your soul. So when it broke, that piece of you broke.

And still another article said that because reflective surfaces can be used for divination, breaking the mirror will disrupt your future.

If you scare easy, you'll want to exercise caution when visiting our haunted house Terror Behind the Screen opening in October in the old Pasco K-Mart across from the post office on west Court Street.

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