Scissors aren’t just damn convenient things for shower scenes in slasher movies – they’re also the subject of many superstitions and folkloric beliefs.

Here’s a few with which to sharpen your superstitious edges:

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Scissors became an important object in household magic in much the same way keys and horseshoes did. They were thought to borrow from the power of the blacksmith – often considered to be a powerful individual in folkloric belief – and were prized items at a time when much craftsmanship went into manufacturing a pair.

And there you have it. Next time you pick up a pair of scissors, you might want to spare a thought for the fact that once they were considered to be items of considerable magical influence.

*Do you know of any superstitions or household rituals relating to scissors? Share them with us via the [submit a superstition](http://www.ulblog.org/submit-a-superstition/) link!*

Footnotes:

1.	Anyone stuck in a relationship with me had better hope I don’t start believing this one, since I’m as clumsy as all hell [2].
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2.	eg: “<clatter> Aha! … Oh, I’m sorry, that’s just me being clum-<clatter> Aha! …” and so on.
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I’ve seriously lost count, over the years, of how many things I’ve been warned about or encouraged to do by chain email.

Remember the Microsoft Money Giveaway email? The one that promised bucketloads of cash for forwarding the email to as many people as you could, because Microsoft had invented an email tracker and apparently wanted to reward people for filling the Internet with spam? Hands up anyone who knows anyone who received any money from it?

Or the one that said that aspartame, used in artificial sweeteners, was making people rot from the inside out?

Or the one that came with the soundfile that when you played it, could tell you your name, star sign and was able to answer basic questions about geometry? [1]

Amidst receiving all of those emails, did you ever wish you could send one back that described what it would be like if you followed all of that urgent advice?

If you answered, ‘Hell, yes!’, then you’re not alone…

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Footnotes:

1.	It’s very possible that I made that one up.
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I first wrote about the Nigerian Scam [1] back in July of 2001 on the ULRC site. It wasn’t by any means a new scam then, but the Internet was still rapidly expanding, and vast numbers of people were still making their way online for the first time, and were being exposed – at an alarming rate – to a scam the majority of them had never heard of before.

Almost six years later, and it appears that the Nigerian Scam is still going strong.

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Footnotes:

1.	Also known as an Advanced Fees Fraud and the 419 Scam, after the relevant section in the Nigerian criminal code that covers fraud operations such as these.
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There’s nothing quite as enjoyable as a well-told Ghost Story, and some of the scariest stories don’t rely at all on monsters and sudden surprises.

Take, for example, the tale below – something spooky is said to happen on the campus of Adelaide University, in South Australia. Something to do with the professor who died late one night on the 6th floor, and who is rumored to be there still.

If only in spirit…

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#### The Goddess Dances By Moonlight

Imagine, for a moment, what it would have been like for the first sentient humans to look up at the night sky and to see the moon charting its way across the heavens. It must have been one of the great mysteries of existence, worthy of secrets and rituals, and later to become an object of worship and suspicion.

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