Pumpkin Superstitions

It is almost July and I’m burning a pumpkin scented candle. Too soon? My friends are watching their pumpkin seeds become seedlings, so I can start shoving pumpkin knowledge into your faces. Right? I will start slow with a short list of pumpkin superstitions. Enjoy!

• Carrying a hollowed-out pumpkin on Halloween will protect you from evil spirits.
• Eating a pumpkin stalk will make you foolish.
• In China, the pumpkin is a symbol of fertility.
• Pumpkins are best planted on Good Friday.
• Once growing, never point at a pumpkin! It will cause them to rot.
• Eating pumpkin seeds can quiet “an excessively passionate nature.”
• Pumpkin seeds, when mixed with oil to create a paste and then rubbed on the skin, will eradicate freckles.
• “Plant pumpkin seeds in May / And they will all run away. Plant pumpkin seeds in June / And they will come soon.”
• Eating pumpkin seeds will cure worms.
• If cows eat pumpkin seeds, they will go dry.

Sources

Carroll, William. Superstitions: 10,000 You Really Need. Coda Publications, 1998.

Daniels, Cora Linn. Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World: Volume 2. 1903.

Little Giant Encyclopedia of Superstitions. New York, The Diagram Group, 2008.

Pickering, David. Cassell Dictionary of Superstitions. London, Cassell, 1995.

Photo by Colton Sturgeon on Unsplash