Old Wives’ Tales That Are Surprisingly Sinister

Old wives’ tales, we all grew up hearing them. They are those classic stories, often passed down by parents, intended either to explain something mysterious or to simply frighten us into good behavior. Think about it: who hasn’t been warned that swallowing gum will take seven years to digest, or that swimming too soon after a meal will cause agonizing stomach cramps?

But those are the gentle, kid-friendly versions. Some of these age-old tales are genuinely terrifying. Here are some of the most disturbing ones ever told. You might want to keep these in mind, just in case.

1. The Unsettling Open Eyes

In Britain, there was a popular belief that if a person died with their eyes open, they were actively searching for someone to accompany them to their final destination. This was also sometimes thought to mean that malevolent spirits were keeping the eyes open, preventing the deceased from resting, or that the person had an unfulfilled life.

To prevent this unfortunate outcome, people would gently close the deceased person’s eyes and place coins, usually pennies, on the eyelids to keep them shut. Interestingly, this practice is thought to be derived from the ancient Greeks, who would place a coin in the mouth of the dead to pay Charon, the ferryman who carried souls across the River Styx into Hades.

2. Seeing Your Future Spouse

Many young people have wondered what their future partner will look like. According to a few creepy old wives’ tales, young ladies can find out, but the methods are unsettling.

• The Apple Slice Ritual: One version suggests that you should secretly enter a room at midnight and cut an apple into nine slices. You then go into a dark room with a mirror, lit only by a single candle. While holding a sharp knife and eating the slices one by one, you are supposedly meant to see the image of your true love appear over your left shoulder, asking for the final slice of apple. Let’s just pause: Midnight, a secret room, an odd number of apple slices, a mirror, and you’re eating food off the point of a sharp knife. When some random figure pops up asking for a bite, it sounds less like romance and more like an imminent stabbing.
• Combing and Looking: Another tale suggests combing your hair while eating an apple and looking into a mirror will reveal your future mate over your shoulder.
• The Backward Walk: The most disturbing version says that at midnight, you should walk down a flight of stairs backward while holding a mirror. You will then see your future partner’s image reflected in the glass. Here’s the flaw: this method is only likely to work if your future spouse happens to be the paramedic who shows up after you fall down the stairs and cut yourself on the mirror you were holding.

3. The Midnight Gum Chew

Most of us know the classic “swallow gum, and it takes seven years to digest” story. However, an old wives’ tale from Turkey takes this to a more sinister level. It claims that if you chew gum after midnight, it will transform into rotten, decaying human flesh. On the bright side, at least it won’t be stuck in your stomach for seven years!

4. Sleep-Time Superstitions

There are a host of old wives’ tales about what happens when you sleep. Some traditions believe that having plants in your bedroom will suck up all the oxygen and cause you harm (a common fear that is easily debunked).

Others are more bizarre:

• Sleeping in direct moonlight could cause insanity.
• Sleeping while facing a mirror would reflect negative energies back at you.
• Perhaps the creepiest of all: The tale that says on your wedding night, the first person in the couple to fall asleep will be the first one to die.

5. Whispering in the Dark

In some cultures, such as Korea and Turkey, whistling at night was thought to call forth evil spirits or even the devil himself.

However, the Japanese version is especially disturbing. Historically, there was a high rate of child trafficking, and the sound of whistling was rumored to be a signal to traffickers that a child was ready to be taken. Legends were deliberately spread among children, claiming that whistling attracted ghosts, to scare them into keeping quiet at night and, thus, staying safe.

6. The Knocking Door Dilemma

This one might actually save you from a horror movie scenario.

It is said that if you hear a knock or doorbell ring, open the door, and find no one there, you should keep the door open for a few seconds before closing it. This supposedly welcomes a good spirit, a protective presence, into your home.

But pay attention, because here’s where it gets tricky:

• If the door is knocked on three times and no one is there, do not open it. This may invite an evil spirit into your home.
• If the back door is knocked on and no one is there, it means the devil is at your door.
• If your front door opens on its own, bad news is coming.
• If the back door opens on its own, it foretells a coming death.

A supposedly true story related to this comes from the Knoxville News Sentinel. A woman named Emily Miller, living alone after her husband’s death, had her front doorbell ring one morning, but no one was there. The ringing then continued every other night at exactly 3:00 a.m. No logical explanation could be found. She stayed up, installed a motion-sensor camera, and called the police, yet no one was ever seen actually touching the bell. She said it wasn’t an electrical problem, as the device was wireless and required a hard twist to sound.

This went on for two to three years until she finally had her son remove the doorbell, throw it away, and fill in the hole. The next morning, at 3:00 a.m., the doorbell rang again. The disturbance was so intense that Miller eventually abandoned the house and moved into a condo.

Even though these are just old wives’ tales, you can never be too cautious. Maybe skip the midnight apple ritual, and if your door is knocking, peering through the peephole is always a safer bet than just opening the door, especially if no one’s standing there.