Aaron,
YOU will NOT believe this but I was always bawled out by my father for stiring my tea anti-clockwise.
He said that I was going against the sun.
All the predecessers I know of were fishermen and fisherwomen and you have to live among them to believe just how superstitious they are.
On their boats you could not say many words, for example, pig, salmon rabbit and many others get them all het up!
You would be blamed for their next fishing being bad.
If you asked a fisherman for a match to light anything on a Monday morning he would probably turn and go back home and not go to the boat that day.
If he met a Church Minister on his way to his boat the same thing happened.
Our new ministers, having never been in a fishing port before they often went down to watch the boats sailing out and coming back in again.
Then they were quietly taken into the vestry where some of the "Old Saints" of the church would just tell them that that was just not on. They were ruining the whole fleet's fishing.
I remarked to one minister that the reason that fisherfolk were so religious was that they were so superstitious.
"You might be right there." was his quiet reply.
When wireless sets were first fitted to fishing boats they used to hold community hymn singing between the boats which we could all pick up on the "Trawler Band: 120 metres" hundred of miles from home.
One skipper even took a harmonium on his boat to add spice to the music.
Then the dreaded wrath of Whitehall Descended on them in the form of letters stating that they were in breach of the "Wireless and Telegraphic Communication Act of 1066" or something like that and were liable to be fined and go to jail if they did not refrain from singing and speaking to their families ashore.
No wonder generation after generation always say the old days were the best.
God Bless You
reekie