Moving on a Saturday
Moving on a Saturday was frowned on in some old lists of omens, yet it is the day most people can get help. The choice of day often comes down to who can carry the couch, and moving day reveals who your people are.
What it may mean
Ask anyone why they moved on a Saturday and the answer is rarely mysterious. It is the day nobody has to take off work, the day a brother can drive up, the day friends will trade an afternoon for pizza. An old omen that frowns on Saturday moves runs straight into that practical fact, and convenience generally wins. Underneath, moving day is less about the calendar than about people. It is a rare time when adults openly ask each other for physical help, and you learn quickly who comes. The friend who shows up at eight with gloves, the neighbor who lends a dolly, the cousin who carries the heavy end of the couch: they are the real good fortune of a move, whatever the day.
Depending on how you saw it
Moving in rain or snow
Pennsylvania lore held out money and prosperity to anyone who moved in a snowstorm. Wet weather on moving day really means more towels and muddier floors. When has a hard start to something looked better in hindsight?
Cleaning out the old place
Turkish custom forbade washing a house as you left it, while in Aberdeenshire people sweeping clean behind them were said to carry the house's good fortune away to spite the next tenants. Today many leases require a clean house anyway. Which unwritten rule about leaving a place did you learn from your family?
The first night among boxes
Lots of people spend the first night in a new home on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by boxes and eating takeout. It is often remembered more fondly than the finished house. What unfinished moment from your past do you remember most warmly?
Moving with no one to help
Some moves happen alone, with hired movers or a single car making trip after trip. Asking for help can feel harder than lifting the boxes. Who would you call if you needed help carrying something heavy, in a move or in life?
Why it happens in nature
Saturdays are the most popular moving day in many places because most people are off work and friends can help, which also makes trucks, movers and elevators harder to book. Old rules about good and bad moving days varied, and one 1903 list warned against moving on both Saturday and Monday.
What folk beliefs say
Turkey
Turkish custom, a 1903 collection says, held that you should never wash out a house when you leave it.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 1 (1903), vol. 1, p. 476. View the page
Pennsylvania, United States
In Pennsylvania, moving house in a snowstorm was said to promise money and prosperity.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 1 (1903), vol. 1, p. 476. View the page
Scotland (Aberdeenshire)
Aberdeenshire folk, when moving out, swept the house clean behind them only if they wished to spite their successors by taking the good fortune of the house away with them.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 1 (1903), vol. 1, p. 502. View the page
To reflect on
Who would turn up if you needed help carrying the heavy things, and whose heavy things would you carry?