Furniture tells us a lot about a period, people, or place. It’s solid, so it can often be the only tangible artefact left. It often bears the impression of human activity through use, and they tell stories. For example, you can see the botanical cabinet belonging to Mary Eleanor Bowes at Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. Her pursuit of her botanical studies is likely one of the things that carried her through her turbulent personal life.
Items of furniture also carry their own traditions through the ways in which we use the things that we inherit. Just look at BBC’s The Repair Shop, and the quest to repair treasured family heirlooms. They often include furniture, such as nursing chairs, chests, and even a miniature bar. How many people sat in that chair before you? Quilts, that cosiest of furnishings, carry so much energy from one generation to the next.
But what about the folklore of furniture? In a more general sense, if a young child marks any furniture, the child will soon die. The mark is believed to be them marking their way out of the world (Price 1901: 34).
Individual items of furniture, such as beds, chairs, and tables, also carry their own superstitions and rites. Let’s explore them!
The Folklore of Tables
When I first started researching this article, tables immediately made me think of seances. On one hand, you’ve got people sitting around tables, fiercely holding hands to help maintain the energy so the dearly departed can pass on their message. On the other hand, you’ve got people cajoling the spirits to move household items, often small tables, as part of the table-turning phenomenon.
Personally, I’ve always found people yelling at the dead and daring them to move things to be quite rude. They’re dead, not performing monkeys. Michael Faraday disproved table-turning in 1853, but you’ll still find it a staple of many paranormal investigations. Both uses of tables derive in part from the creation of Spiritualism in 1848 by the Fox sisters in New York. The use of tables to communicate with the dead reached the UK by the early 1850s (Briefel 2017: 209).
But it shows how something as humble as a table can become an important element within ghost stories as a site for conveying messages. Some people keep laying an extra place at the table after a death. Others only do so for a month while the spirit is still nearby (Opie 2005: 390).
And maybe it’s more than just messages that are passed on through tables. Look at the table in the Audit Room at Chetham’s School in Manchester bearing a burn mark. One of the Devil’s hooves apparently made it, after Dr John Dee conjured him up for his advice. No one knows what advice Old Nick passed on, but he left the burn mark behind. Is the legend true? I don’t know, but it certainly makes a good story. The tangibility of the burn mark lends some credence to the tale.
Tables are also part of a somewhat strange fixation with marriage in folklore. If you’re an unmarried woman, take care not to sit on a table, otherwise, you’ll never marry. This contradicts other folklore that says a single person sitting at the edge of a table means they want to marry (Opie 2005: 390).
Beware the tablecloth!
You also had to be careful when folding the tablecloth, although some of these superstitions also apply to sheets.
If you folded a tablecloth and doubled up the middle, the octagonal crease would look like a coffin, which was an understandable omen of death. Finding a diamond in the folds of an unfolded sheet also meant someone would die in the bed it was used on (Opie 2005: 390).
And it’s unlucky to play cards at a table with no tablecloth.
Not-So Musical Chairs – A Sign of Ghosts?
Chairs are perhaps more associated with tales of ghosts, often found overturned after moments of spectral activity. In horror films, armchairs can be haunted by previous occupants of the beleaguered home, particularly if the chair was a favourite resting spot, or if the person passed away there. And I can’t resist a Ghostbusters reference – just look at the armchair that captures Dana and deposits her in the realm of Zuul.
Remember, it’s also a chair in which the ghost of Lord Combermere is said to be captured in the famous photo. I’ll be exploring the Thomas Busby haunted chair in this month’s exclusive article, only available to Patreon supporters (at all levels).
Yet superstitions also cling to certain types of chairs, especially rocking chairs. It’s bad luck to play cards while sitting in a rocking chair. Watch out for unoccupied rocking chairs that move of their own accord. One superstition claims that this means a death in the family, while another says it’s because a spirit of a family member has returned to claim the next to die (Bergen 1889b: 105).
Chairs and Luck
That said, if you do play cards and you’re losing, stand up and turn your chair around three times to change your luck. You can also twist the chair on one leg four times, which is also believed to turn your luck (Opie 2005: 68). Be careful you don’t do it at random. In some parts of the country, it brings bad luck to turn a chair around twice or more (Opie 2005: 69).
Sitting beside an empty chair brings bad luck. But if a person stood up at a table and knocked over their chair, it meant they’d been lying. Nurses who knocked over chairs meant new patients were on their way.
Indeed, most people who work in offices will have known that phenomenon where a female member of staff sits in the seat of a woman who is or has been recently pregnant, and people assume joke that the staff member will be pregnant next. Yes, it is fairly crass and has the potential to be highly insensitive since no one knows the staff member’s feelings on the idea of being pregnant. Simpson and Roud note this is a relatively recent phenomenon (2003: 31).
Avoid passing a chair over a table or a row will break out. And if you’re having a catchup with a friend and you get up from the table, don’t push your chair under, or you won’t come back. Try not to sit down in a seat as soon as it becomes available, or the second person to sit will follow the one who stood up to the grave (Opie 2005: 68). This last superstition gives rise to the phrase, “Would you jump in my grave as fast?” when someone slides into your seat as soon as you stand up.
The Folklore of the Bed
Beds are common, which is hardly surprising since people considered themselves most vulnerable in their bedrooms. After all, this is the place where we sleep and dream.
So we find apotropaic items around the bed, such as horseshoes hung at the foot of the bed to ward off danger, or other items like Bibles hidden at the head of the bed, in the roof space, or under their pillow (Davies 2018: 69). A branch of rowan either in or near the bed might stop you from being hag-ridden (Porteous 2002 [1928]: 86).
It was also considered bad luck to sit on a sick patient’s bed, or you’d be the next in bed (Opie 2005: 16). This one is probably rooted in hygiene practices, as it cuts down spreading germs from a person to a sick bed.
Making the Bed
Making the bed even has folklore attached to it. In Scotland, some believed it was unlucky to leave a bed half-made. Any interruption during the making process would bring insomnia to the bed’s usual occupant (Opie 2005: 16). If you sneezed while making a bed, you were supposed to take some of the straw out of it and throw it in the fire, so as not to disturb the sleep of its usual occupant (Opie 2005: 16). Three people should never make the same bed at the same time, or there would be a death in the house within a year (Opie 2005: 16).
Don’t turn your mattress on a Sunday, or it’ll bring bad dreams to the bed’s occupant for the following week. Others thought it was bad luck to do so or you’d lose your partner. And still others said you shouldn’t turn a mattress on Friday or you would “turn the luck” (Opie 2005: 17). Try to avoid changing your sheets on a Friday, or the Devil will control your dreams for the following week (Opie 2005: 17).
And if you enjoy quilting? Women who finish a patchwork quilt without needing any help would never marry. And you had to make sure you finished your quilts. An unfinished bedspread meant no one in the house would marry (Opie 2005: 17).
Placement of the Bed
Even the placement of the bed is important. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud note that you shouldn’t sleep with the foot of the bed facing the door (2003: 19). That’s because coffins were carried out of the house feet first. Sleeping in the same direction was thought to be tempting fate.
You should align your bed with the direction of the floorboards. Putting the bed across them would stop you from sleeping (Roud 2003: 19). That said, you also needed to be careful where any floor beams were in relation to the bed. In 1846, a sick person in Devon seemed to be prolonging their death more than the relatives could stand. They realised there was a beam concealed in the floor above. They moved the bed, and the man finally passed away (Opie 2005: 15). Other stories echoed this belief that beams or planks going across the bed would stop a person from dying.
People also felt it was bad luck to put your left foot on the floor first when getting up. So, position the bed so you get out of the righthand side first (Opie 2005: 16).
Monsters Under the Bed
And we can’t talk about beds without the widespread belief there is something living under it. How many of us even now hate putting their feet out of bed during the night, for fear something may grab our ankle?
Let me know if you’d like a specific article about bed monster folklore!
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
Even cradles don’t escape from folklore, and given the need to protect their vulnerable occupant, this is not surprising.
People considered it particularly unlucky to make a cradle from elder, since elders played host to a dryad that would haunt whoever cut down the tree. Making a cradle from elder wood meant the child would never find any peace (Kindred 1996).
In one story from 1889, a family noticed their baby was very ill. A relative realised one of the cradle’s rockers was made of elder. When they removed it, the baby bounced back to full health (Opie 2005: 137).
Even buying one could prove difficult, as parents strove not to buy one until the child was born. People saw it as a bad omen to bring a new cradle into the house before the birth (Opie 2005: 103).
Rocking an empty cradle became an omen, but this time, of a new occupant! Much of the lore revolves around parents doing all they could to prevent anyone rocking the cradle, and thus bringing a new baby within the year (Opie 2005: 103).
Pictures – Important Decor, After All
Pictures fall under our heading of furnishings. There’s a small amount of folklore about pictures and the omens attached to them.
In the 17th century, people believed it meant bad luck was coming if their portrait fell to the floor. Did some mystical force break the string to knock it from the wall? (Opie 2005: 304)
By the 19th century, the belief remained, no doubt since people considered the portrait the ‘double’ of the person in it. Damage to the portrait could refer to damage to the person. A picture falling on a wedding day portends bad luck, while a family portrait falling means death is coming (Opie 2005: 304).
Yet the belief remained even into the late 20th century, with noted author Catherine Cookson even subscribing to the belief. A woman in 1986 reported that she’d “never known a picture fall, without someone in the family dying soon after” (Opie 2005: 305).
You should be careful where you hang your pictures. People thought it bad luck to hang them over a doorway or a bedhead (Opie 2005: 305). Yet I wonder how much of that is due to a fear of them falling and thus landing on someone?
What do we make of the folklore of furniture?
As I said earlier, furniture can be highly personal. After the Great Exhibition in 1851, people took more interest in what their design choices said about them (Briefel 2017: 211). This greater emphasis on furniture is important to folklore. It could explain why many of the superstitions involving furniture only date to the 19th century onwards.
But furniture also bears the scars of its interactions with humans. Every scuff, scrape, and replacement part tells a story about its past. What we store in furniture turns caskets, chests, and wardrobes into a microcosm of a person. These items, taken together, paint a picture of their owner. It’s hardly surprising that these items appear in ghost stories. For a brief period from the 1850s to early 1860s, in Britain, at least, people thought haunted objects were proof that ghosts existed (Briefel 2017: 210).
And then there’s how we interact with furniture. Much of the folklore involves omens, or a tenuous belief in the ability to control your fate through your interactions with inanimate objects. This is something we need to bear in mind; if you feel you can prevent a death from occurring by making the bed the right way, then it gives you a sense of control over something that is ultimately out of your hands.
Do you have any sayings or traditions associated with your furniture?
References
Bergen, Fanny D., Beauchamp, W. M. and Newell, W. W. (1889b) ‘Current Superstitions. II. Omens of Death’ in The Journal of American Folklore, 2 (5), pp. 105-112.
Briefel, Aviva (2017), ‘”Freaks of Furniture”: The Useless Energy of Haunted Things’, Victorian Studies, 59 (2), pp. 209–234.
Davies, Owen & Ceri Houlbrook (2018), ‘Concealed and Revealed: Magic and Mystery in the Home’, in Sophie Page and Marina Wallace (eds), Spellbound: Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, pp. 67-95.
Kindred, Glennie (1996), ‘The Spirit Of The Elder Tree’, White Dragon, https://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/elder.htm.
Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem (2005), Oxford Dictionary of Superstitions, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Porteous, Alexander (2002 [1928]), The Forest in Folklore and Mythology, Mineola, NY: Dover.
Simpson, Jacqueline and Steve Roud (2003), A Dictionary of English Folklore, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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My mother, who grew up in Texas in the 1940s and 50s, never displayed family pictures, because she believed that if they fell and the glass in the frame cracked, the person in the picture would die. Very cool to learn that this superstition dates back hundreds of years!