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'Money Spiders' & Other Spider Superstitions

marion

marion

Ungnoing.
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Do you believe in them? Is there something special you have to do to bring about the money luck? Where did you learn this? What sort of spider would you consider to be a money spider? What part of the UK/world do you come from? Are you afraid of spiders but fine with money spiders? Has a money spider ever brought you riches?

When I was small just seeing one was enough to bring about the chance of money,later I aquired the fact that you had to take the spider dangling on its silk and wind it three times round your head. They seemed to be tiny shiny (adult not baby) dark brown or black spiders. I never noticed that it worked!
 
I was told by my mum in the 70s in Yorkshire that if a tiny small spider walked on you you'd be rich. Didn't work if you put it on you yourself.
Many times a small spider has walked on me and I'm not starving by any means ... but not what you'd call rich.
I have often wondered if it was something you tell children to stop them being scared of spiders.
There was no hard and fast rule about what was and wasn't a money spider, I just recall they were very very small.
 
I am pretty sure that money spiders are juveniles of various species, usually the type that sail off into the sky on summers days by extending a gossamer strand, acting like a tiny hanglider...
one tiny spider launched him/herself off my knee once...fascinating process.

Adult spiders that are small look quite different, IIRC.
 
I think money spiders are a species in their own right, but are often confused with juvenile house spiders.
 
Exerpts from A Treasury of Superstitions by Claudia DeLys:

If you see a spider in the morning, it is a warning.
If you see a spider at noon, it will bring you good news.
If you see a spider at night, it will bring you joy and delight.
Some variations to the good luck and good fortune theme the book provides include that to see a spider drop down on a single thread is bad luck, but to see it climb back up is good luck.
It also specifies those tiny, red spiders (in New England usually called brick spiders or the totally un-PC chinamen spiders) as money spiders.
I've never heard the money spider myth until this thread, but grew up with the myth of killing a spider in your house will bring rain or bad luck.

This book attributes most of the superstitions involving spiders to be due to their love of quiet and their ingenuity.

It also says that, in many parts of the western world, there exists a superstition involving swallowing a live spider along with some sugar syrup as a cure for fever.

:eek!!!!: :cross eye :eek!!!!:
 
Money spiders have to spun three times around your head then released unharmed (if a little dizzy) in the garden.

I'm scared stiff of house spiders (too many legs; run too fast; have a habit of investigating your nose/ears/mouth, etc), but little money spiders don't worry me at all. I will always perform the above ritual (it's important not to wish for anything in particular, least of all money) then place it outside.

I can only assume that it has something to do with spiders being good for the garden because, erm... I've no idea why they are, but I heard it on Gardeners' Question Time so it must be true.

Jane.
 
Spiders are good for the garden...

...because they eat just about everything else...
 
As I child was told that a money spider would only bring you money if it crawled over your hand.
 
I just remebered my pass after about 4 months :) lol anyway i was told as a kid that if a money spider runs across your right hand you would get money and if it runs across your left hand you will give money... imagine one of these spiders running across your hand tho lol
 
tell me that's photoshop magic - can't be a real spider...
anyway. in italy, as far as i know, the spiders associated with good luck are the daddy longlegs type. you don't have to do anything special - just don't kill them if you find one in the bath tub or the kitchen sink. kindly help it go away.
that's what i was taught, anyway. i suppose there may be different traditions.
 
I was told by a mirth-some relative that you had to put money-spiders in your pocket if you found them...huh!
I never got any richer!:D
 
ginoide said:
tell me that's photoshop magic - can't be a real spider...
anyway. in italy, as far as i know, the spiders associated with good luck are the daddy longlegs type. you don't have to do anything special - just don't kill them if you find one in the bath tub or the kitchen sink. kindly help it go away.
that's what i was taught, anyway. i suppose there may be different traditions.
Click to expand...

Acutally, that is a real spider. It is called a huntsman spider and lives in Australia. They are supposed to be mostly harmless. Now you really don't want to go up against a camel spider. Those are some baddies to be sure! Here is a link to a video of a camel spider fighting a scorpion, and winning!

http://www.ecologicproductions.com/video_projects/TSCK/endangered/TSCK_spider.html
 
ECPE said:
Acutally, that is a real spider. It is called a huntsman spider and lives in Australia. They are supposed to be mostly harmless.
Click to expand...

:eek!!!!:
 
Please stop posting pictures of freak spiders, between that one and the chiken spider and the Giant Japanese S[pider Crab I'm not gonna sleep for a year!

Going to Greece in May, what is the spider situation there?

Money spiders, no probs btw :)
 
That is one bad looking Mo-fo.....

Those tiny little red spider type things i was told if i killed em it would cause rain, and as a kid i was sure that it actually happened.

However i later found out theyre not actually spiders, they are ticks....bah

Apparently there are over 250 species of money spider.......

http://www.the-piedpiper.co.uk/th11f(4).htm
 
Anonymous said:
Those tiny little red spider type things i was told if i killed em it would cause rain, and as a kid i was sure that it actually happened.

However i later found out theyre not actually spiders, they are ticks....bah
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I know this was 14 years ago, but I will not have those lovely little red creatures maligned. They're mites, not ticks. Mites are much nicer than ticks. Ticks indeed. Well they are a bit naughty. But they're not blood-sucking human parasites are they.
 
Eponastill said:
I know this was 14 years ago, but I will not have those lovely little red creatures maligned. They're mites, not ticks. Mites are much nicer than ticks. Ticks indeed. Well they are a bit naughty. But they're not blood-sucking human parasites are they.
Click to expand...
If those little red ones are the ones I'm thinking of, I was a bit cruel when I was a little kid: I used to enjoy popping them on our garden walls because the amount of red blood/juice/whatever that came out of each one was amazing ... I wouldn't do that nowadays, I'm a lot more Buddhist in my approach to little creatures now ..
 
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