Superstitions of German-Russians, List of

Last Update 31 Oct  2002

Stories of Supernatural and Witchcraft told by German-Russians, their Ancestors and their Descendants continued....

Superstitions Connected To Hair

If one was born with red hair, especially the carrot red, you were unlucky if you lived in in ancient Egypt or Greece, and in Europe in mid-evil times,  redheads were burned at the stake to rid the world of the witchery.  There were a few redheads in the GR communities who forefathers probably were the early Keltics who lived near the Rhine River and were taken as wives by the early Teutonic warriors who invaded and then settled around the Rhine.....

Does hair grow after one dies?  According to old tales, many coffins opened found corpses with long hair and long horny nails.  Far as I know,  this is not true.

According to the bible stories, there were some who believed they gained strength from their hair.

If a girl is ill and she has long hair, it was cut because it was believed that long hair took away her strength to fight her illness.

More than one I've heard the story that after a fright or tragedy, someone hair has turn white overnight  A fallacy?  From what I understand,  the hair that has already grown remains the same color, however, the roots could all grow out gray, but all of it grey overnight, the answer is no.

Have you every heard, "Pull out one grey hair and ten will grow in it's place."?  Yep, but, again, untrue.

A baby's lock of hair was often kept as a talisman. And,  if one goes back farther into this superstition, it was believed  if the lock of hair was kept hidden where evil could not find it, the child would live a very long life.

There was a time it was believed a child's hair should not be cut for if one did so the child's eyesight would be affected.  When the hair was finally cut, a lock was saved for luck and the cut hair was burned to prevent anyone using it for evil intent.

Some believed that if a bird steal a persons hair and weaves it into their nest, the person will go mad.

A locket of hair given to a lover is formed in a circle, enclosed in a locket and exchanged between lovers as a symbol of the love.

Widow's peak, that when the hair-line on the forehead in the middle forms a V, is found on a female she will be a young widow, however, she will soon remarry.

Here is something I can hear little girls chant:  "If your eyebrows meet across the nose, You'll never wear your wedding clothes."  Let the plucking of eyebrows begin.

Ornaments  [cap, ribbons, hair pins] in a woman's hair showed a great deal of things to the observer. In the olden times when traditions were very strict, so, everyone could tell if a female was of marrying age, married, widowed, Protestant or Catholic, and,  even in what village she lived.

As for the superstitions which surrounded these ornaments, there were many, and most were surrounding the courtship of a young woman.  Examples are:

If a hairpin slips from a woman's hair, it means someone is thinking of you.  

If a hairpin is given to you then it is binding a new friendship.

If a hairpin falls from a woman's hair and she can not find it, it means she will lose her lover or husband.

Giving of engagement and weddings rings was a ritual that wasn't until the end of the 1800s. Before rings,  engagement presents were hair pins, haircombs,  if wealthy,  maybe given were earrings from the future groom to the  future bride.  The most popular at the end of the 1800s was something made of amber or jade in the GR communities. 

Combs were objects of magic and in ancient times, the comb was used to rid the hair of evil spirits or influences.  Since they were a talisman,  the power of it depended upon it's substance, for example, was it made of bone, ivory, bronze, copper, silver or gold.  In other words, the comb warded off the
"evil eye".  To add to it's power were stones such as amber...

Drop a comb from your hair, a person had to find it then walk around it three times [clock wise] before picking it up, if the person did not then misfortune was quick to rear it's ugly head  To reverse this future misfortune, .  If such a ritual was not done, a person had to step on it with your right foot and make a wish.  If it was a man's comb, he often added a spit or two to the comb before picking it up.

Sometimes when a girl / woman combed her long hair, electrical static occurred.  The ancients thought these crackle and pops which occurred were the evil spirits and the talisman comb was the only way to rid the evil.

To confuse the demons in the hair, braid the hair with ribbon so the demons become confused and loose their way 

Hanging a ribbon or handkerchief on a bush on "May Eve" in hopes to find the initials of their future husband marked in dew upon it by the maiden.

Ribbons worn by young ladies were often cut and given to the boyfriend for "good luck".  Same was true of a wife,  if she gave her husband cut ribbons from her own headdress,  it was "good luck" and was usually given when they went off to war.  If one had a black ribbon that meant it was from his wife because married women, no matter their religion, wore black.  If one had a blue ribbon the girl was unmarried and a Lutheran.  If blue, the young girl was Catholic, also, unmarried.

In the olden times, it was a fashion in Europe to wear a triangular kerchief or scarf over the head because a decent woman would never be seen in public without one.  The larger scarf was founded diagonally into a triangle and this held a mystic protection to protect the girl's /woman's hair.

Never wear a hat to bed but it was all right to use a net to protect the hair from those evil spirits that tangled the hair in the night.

If a person needed  to reverse a person's "bad luck", a person turned their hat from front to back and "good luck" would return...  

Story #1:  "My maternal grandfather had been ill for years--just old age I guess.  He passed away at 89 years of age at home.  My grandmother was proud of the fact that she had not sent him to a nursing home...  After he passed away, my mother and several of her sister went down to grandmother's to clean the house and take care of things because grandma was exhausted...  When my mother and sister changed the bed, they decided to turn the mattress.  Between the mattress and the box spring they found a handkerchief folded and a pinned with safety pin.  Inside the handkerchief was a black ribbon and a hair pin.  My mother knew it was some kind of superstition, but when she asked my grandmother about it, she received no answer.  The surprising thing to me about this, is, my grandparents did not appear to be superstitious and I would have have imagined that they were.

Although I have researched this handkerchief/black ribbon/hair pin phenomenon, I have not been able to find out what it means ...."