I broke a mirror yesterday and not for the first time in my life. Does this mean that I am about to endure seven years of bad luck?  That is what the old superstition says that life has in store for me but somehow I think not. With the number of mirrors I have broken over the years I would be decidedly dead and buried by now if there was any truth to that story!

Why The Bad Luck?

People revere and even fear what they do not understand and so it isn’t difficult to see why early mirrors would have caused a few folk to stop in their tracks. The reflection must have seemed like something of a miracle and this is probably how many superstitions related to mirrors began to form.

Special Powers

Mirrors were believed to have special powers, to be connected with deities and even to steal part of the soul of those reflected. Ordinary folk did not understand how mirrors worked and so believed all sorts of weird and wonderful things about them. Mirrors appeared to be invested with mystical abilities and so it is little wonder that many myths and superstitions grew up. One of these was that breaking a mirror would harm the soul of the person reflected in it as that soul already partly belonged to the mirror. Even distorting your reflection in a mirror was thought to endanger your soul!

Glass Mirrors and the Romans

Many centuries after the first, crude mirrors were evolved from stones and metal, the Romans began to create glass mirrors which were highly effective but very expensive to produce. Mirrors were the preserve of the wealthy and it is likely that the old stories about mirrors afflicting the soul were translated into the bad luck myth that we talk about today.

Breaking a mirror in those days was indeed very bad luck for the clumsy person who made the mistake because it might well take them seven years of work to pay for it! It is probable that the seven years of bad luck idea began as a threat to ensure that care was taken over the mirrors. In addition, the Romans believed that it took seven years for the soul and body of a person to rejuvenate and so the precise duration of the curse almost certainly has its root in this idea.

A New Mirror

Of course these days we have access to the scientific knowledge we need to understand how mirrors work. They are now such common elements of our lives that most of us will never even pause to marvel at them and there are few homes which don’t have several mirrors around the place. They are no longer things of mystery and so it is a little curious that the old superstition is still talked about let alone believed. I don’t expect to have seven years of bad luck. The only misfortune I will suffer is having to pay for a new decorative mirror for my bedroom and these days even ordinary folk like me can afford one of those!

Article by Sally Stacey