Popular Superstitions From Each State -- From Lucky Pennies to Hawaii Rocks

In the Shenandoah Valley, people count the number of foggy mornings in August and that is how many winter snows there will be.

There have been superstitions associated with burials throughout history and around the world. In Washington, Native Americans believe someone who handles a corpse should eat salmon or sturgeon for 30 days after burial to assure prosperity.

The Appalachian region is rich in folklore, legends, and superstitions, many of them from German and Scottish cultures. One belief is that after someone dies his or her pictures begin to fade.

“Bad luck comes in threes” is the most searched superstition in Wisconsin. The tendency to believe that disasters and catastrophes always seem to come in threes is called apophenia, or the belief that in meaningful connections between unrelated things. German psychologist and neuroscientists Klaus Conrad came up with the term in 1958.

In cowboy superstition, giving someone a knife will sever the relationship between gift-giver and recipient. To offset the misfortune, the receiver should pay for the knife with at least a penny. And that’s a bargain whether you’re superstitious or not.