Smashing eggs

 

There is an old childhood friend who recently brought something interesting to my attention. She said that when she was a kid, her mum made her toasted soldiers with a boiled egg for breakfast, and then her mum told her to smash up the empty egg shell after eating to stop witches causing trouble in the house. So she asked everyone else if they too had a similar belief, and on Facebook a vast number of people shared that they had similar. They also grew up being told to smash egg shells to stop witches. Apparently witches used those egg shells to store their magic inside. My friend has always been an eccentric character, and we went to school together. Just like her, she's now living in a gorgeous Victorian gothic house with her husband and kids. So we were all exchanging the stories with the egg smashing ritual. It turns out is very common especially in the South.

I learned that this egg smashing thing is a very old tradition that comes from fishing communities. People believed crushing empty eggshells after a meal would prevent witches using them to sail off and sink fishing boats. This was what sailors have been doing, empty egg smashing for centuries! The tradition goes right back to the Roman Empire. I added my discovery to the Fb chat and her post got smashed. My friend's lively sweet natured discussion of egg smashing was gone, replaced with a mean warning from Facebook telling her off for breaking their rules. This seems unfair when it was only a friendly discussion of childhood rituals. Perhaps when it became deeper about folklore and witchcraft maybe it scared the whiskey brigade. 

Besides, coincidence or not, the same day I went out later and found a smashed egg on the footpath. No, honestly everyone, I didn't do it.  Then the following day, there were two more smashed eggs on the same place. Someone did this to be messy, a prank, or a mischievous goblin at it again!

Storm Valkyrie