If they come across a tails-up penny on the sidewalk, they flip it over so it's lucky for whoever finds it next. Some people believe only a heads-up penny is good luck. It's likely this is where the idea that finding a penny - which used to be made of copper - came from originally. Metals could be used as protection, and suddenly having that security probably felt lucky. Many ancient peoples believed metals were gifts from the gods. A fake rabbit's foot still symbolizes plenty of luck. According to folklorist Bill Ellis, killing the rabbit on top of the grave of a mean person was thought to make it luckier, too.ĭon't go stalking rabbits in cemeteries, though. Hoodoo lore also explains how to get the luckiest rabbit foot - it should be the left one, the rabbit should be killed in a cemetery, and the foot should be cut off on a Friday, to name a few. In hoodoo folklore, rabbit's feet are good luck because of how fertile rabbits are, which means they have a lot of babies. In the United States, this idea might have gotten mixed in with aspects of an African American folklore, called hoodoo, to create the belief that rabbits' feet are lucky. In ancient Celtic folklore, that means they live closer to the gods of the underworld and could communicate with them. Ancient Celtics associated rabbits with good luck because they live underground.
