Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things Read Online Free PDF

East. By the Middle Ages, Europeans were so fearful of falling under the influence of an evil glance that any person with a dazed, crazed, or canny look was liable to be burned at the stake. A case of cataracts could spell death.

    The evil eye is one of the most universally dreaded bad luck beliefs, found in virtually all cultures .
    How did such a belief originate independently among so many different peoples?
    One of the most commonly accepted theories among folklorists involves the phenomenon of pupil reflection: If you look into a person’s eyes, your own minuscule image will appear in the dark of the pupil. And indeed, our word “pupil” comes from the Latin pupilla , meaning “little doll.”
    Early man must have found it strange and frightening to glimpse his own image in miniature in the eyes of other tribesmen. He may have believed himself to be in personal danger, fearing that his likeness might lodge permanently in, and be stolen by, an evil eye. This notion is reinforced by the belief among primitive African tribes less than a century ago that to be photographed was to permanently lose one’s soul.
    The Egyptians had a curious antidote to an evil stare—kohl, history’s first mascara. Worn by both men and women, it was applied in a circle or oval about the eyes. (See “Eye Makeup,” page 223.) The chemical base was antimony, a metal, and while soothsayers prepared the compound for men to smear on, women concocted their own antimony formulas, adding preferred secret ingredients.
    Why should mascara be an evil-eye antidote?

    No one today is certain. But darkly painted circles around the eyes absorb sunlight and consequently minimize reflected glare into the eye. The phenomenon is familiar to every football and baseball player who has smeared black grease under each eye before a game. The early Egyptians, spending considerable time in harsh desert sunlight, may have discovered this secret themselves and devised mascara not primarily for beautifying purposes, as is the standard belief, but for practical and superstitious ones.
    Stork Brings Baby: Antiquity, Scandinavia
    To account for the sudden appearance of a new baby in a household, Scandinavian mothers used to tell their children that a stork brought it. And to account for the mother’s much-needed bed rest, the children were told that before the bird departed, it bit the mother’s leg.
    The need to offer young children some explanation for the arrival of a new baby (especially in a time when infants were born at home) is understandable. But why a stork?
    Early Scandinavian naturalists had studied storks and their nesting habits on home chimney stacks. The birds, in their long, seventy-year life span, returned to the same chimney year after year, and they mated monogamously. Young adult birds lavished great attention and care on elderly or infirm parents, feeding them and offering their extended wings for support. In fact, the ancient Romans, impressed with the stork’s altruistic behavior, passed legislation called Lex Ciconaria , the “Stork’s Law,” compelling children to care for their aged parents. The Greeks were equally impressed. Their term storge , the origin of our word “stork,” means “strong natural affection.”
    Thus, the stork’s gentleness, along with the convenience of its nesting in a home’s chimney, made it an ideal creature to deliver a new arrival down the chimney. For centuries, the old Norse legend was popular throughout Scandinavia. It was nineteenth-century Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, through his fairy tales, who popularized the myth worldwide.
    Covering a Yawn: Antiquity, Middle East
    Today, covering the mouth when yawning is considered an essential of good manners. But the original custom stemmed not from politeness but from fear—a fear that in one giant exhalation the soul, and life itself, might depart the body. A hand to the lips held back the life force.
    Ancient man had accurately observed