Walking under a ladder
Ducking under a ladder is the textbook example of tempting fate. Most of us still step around one, and the detour says a lot about how much we will pay to dodge a small, vague fear.
What it may mean
Around 1900, someone in Saint John, New Brunswick, counted the girls who passed a ladder stretched across a sidewalk. Of 170, only six walked under it; the rest stepped into the gutter, through mud ankle-deep. That is the superstition in one picture: a certain, messy cost accepted to avoid an uncertain one. People do the same with emails they never open, calls they put off, conversations they route around for months. The detour feels safer, but it has a price of its own. Going around a ladder is often simple good sense, since tools and paint really do fall. The broader question is where you have been wading through mud to avoid a ladder that might have been fine. You can respect the old caution and still count the cost of each detour.
Depending on how you saw it
A ladder across a busy sidewalk
When a ladder blocks half the walkway, going around it can put you in traffic, which is the real danger. Safety and superstition point in different directions here. Where has an old habit of caution led you toward a bigger risk?
A painter's ladder in a doorway
At home or at work, a ladder in a doorway forces a choice dozens of times a day. Most people duck under it by the third trip. How quickly do your rules bend once they become inconvenient?
Realizing afterward that you walked under one
Sometimes you notice the ladder only once you are past it, and the thought arrives late: did that count? Nothing has changed except that you know. Which worry of yours grows only after the fact, when there is nothing left to do?
A stepladder left open in your own kitchen
Even in your own home you may find yourself stepping around an open stepladder. Superstitions learned in childhood live in the body, not the mind. Which of your reflexes would you drop tomorrow if you could switch it off?
Why it happens in nature
A ladder leaning against a wall makes a triangle with the ground, and anyone passing through it may bump the ladder or be hit by a dropped tool, a can of paint or debris. Falls from ladders are a common cause of serious injury, so keeping clear of a ladder in use is sensible for the climber as well as the walker.
What folk beliefs say
New Brunswick, Canada
In Saint John, New Brunswick, of 170 girls who came upon a ladder stretched across the sidewalk, only six went under it; the rest walked in the gutter through mud ankle-deep.
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. 465. View the page
To reflect on
Where have you been taking a long, messy detour to avoid a risk you have never actually checked?