New Year Superstitions: First-Footing, Grapes and Luck Rites

New Year superstitions are customs meant to secure good luck for the coming year or to read what it will bring, based on the widespread belief that the way a year begins sets the pattern for the rest of it. They include the Scottish first-foot, the first visitor across the threshold after midnight; the twelve grapes eaten in Spain at the chimes; pouring molten metal into water in Germany and Finland; Lunar New Year taboos on sweeping and sharp objects; and lucky foods from lentils to black-eyed peas. Some go back to the Roman Kalends of January; many are first recorded only in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries.

Beginnings as Omens: Why the New Year Attracts Superstition§

Every calendar has a threshold, and thresholds attract ritual. In the Roman Fasti, Ovid has the two-faced god Janus explain why Romans spoke only words of good omen on the first day of the year: omina principiis inesse solent, "omens are accustomed to reside in beginnings". The same logic appears in the English saying that what you do on New Year's Day you will do all year, and in the many taboos against lending, spending, quarrelling, crying or working on that day.

New Year customs fall into a few broad types. Some invite luck in, through the right first visitor, gifts, food or noise. Some keep luck from leaving, by forbidding anything to be carried out of the house. Some cleanse, by cleaning, paying debts or burning the old year. And some divine, reading the future from shapes, dreams or chance. The same categories appear in Luck, Omens and Portents. The choice of the date itself varies: 1 January in the Roman and modern civil calendar, but also the Lunar New Year, Rosh Hashanah, Nowruz at the spring equinox and, in Celtic-speaking lands, the festival discussed in Samhain.

The Roman Kalends and the Church's Complaint§

At the Kalends of January Romans exchanged strenae, small gifts named after the goddess Strenia; Ovid mentions dates, figs and honey, given so that the year might be sweet, and coins. In late antiquity the festival grew into several days of revelry across the empire.

Christian preachers attacked it. Augustine preached against the Kalends celebrations, and sermons of Caesarius of Arles in the sixth century condemned people who dressed as stags or old women, left tables laden with food overnight as an omen of plenty, and refused to give fire or anything else from their houses to a neighbour on that day. These complaints are valuable evidence, and the refusal to give away fire or light at New Year was still recorded in parts of Britain more than a thousand years later. Historians nevertheless warn against assuming unbroken continuity: as Ronald Hutton shows in The Stations of the Sun, many British customs can be traced only to the early modern period. The wider history of how churchmen used the word "superstition" is told in Origins of Superstition.

First-Footing and Hogmanay in Scotland and Northern England§

After the Scottish Reformation discouraged the celebration of Christmas, Hogmanay, the last night of the year, became Scotland's chief winter festival. Its best-known custom is first-footing. The first person to cross the threshold after midnight determines the household's luck for the year. The ideal first-foot, in most nineteenth-century accounts, was a tall, dark-haired man who was not a member of the household, bearing symbolic gifts such as a piece of coal, salt, bread or black bun, shortbread and whisky, so that the house would not lack warmth, food or cheer. Women, fair- or red-haired men, people with flat feet or eyebrows that met, and anyone carrying a knife were unlucky.

Explanations that the dark first-foot is preferred because fair-haired Vikings once brought trouble are popular but unsupported. Preparation was as important as the visit: the house was cleaned (the "redding"), debts were paid and ashes cleared before the bells. The custom is described in more detail in the spellbook entry on first-footing at Hogmanay. In England, families let the old year out through the back door and the new in through the front, and nothing, not even rubbish or ashes, was to be taken out of the house on New Year's Day, a belief that echoes the old refusal to give away fire.

European Customs: Grapes, Lead, Plates and Pomegranates§

Many continental customs are recent. In Spain the uvas de la suerte, twelve grapes eaten one at each stroke of midnight, are usually said to have been popularised around 1909 by growers with a surplus harvest, though newspaper references suggest that some Madrid families already ate grapes at New Year in the 1880s. The custom spread through Latin America, along with others such as wearing yellow or red underwear, walking round the block with an empty suitcase to ensure travel, and burning an effigy of the old year in Ecuador and Colombia.

In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Finland, Bleigießen or uudenvuodentina was long a family game of divination: a small piece of lead or tin was melted in a spoon and dropped into cold water, and the resulting shape was read as a sign for the year, a ship meaning travel or a ring a wedding. The European Union restricted the sale of lead for such kits from 2018, and wax or tin substitutes are now used. The practice belongs to the family of methods described in What Is Divination?. German-speaking countries also exchange lucky symbols such as pigs, chimney sweeps, horseshoes and four-leaf clovers, discussed in European Superstitions.

In Denmark friends throw old plates against each other's doors and jump off chairs at midnight; in Greece a coin is baked into the vasilopita cake and a pomegranate is smashed at the threshold so that its seeds scatter like abundance, while the first visitor, often a child chosen for good luck, performs the podariko. Italians eat lentils for money, as described in European Folk Money Charms.

Lunar New Year: China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan§

The Lunar New Year, falling between late January and mid-February, is surrounded by a dense set of taboos in Chinese communities. Houses are cleaned thoroughly beforehand, but sweeping or throwing out rubbish on the first day risks sweeping away luck; washing hair, using scissors or knives, breaking dishes and speaking words that sound like "death" or "four" are avoided, and debts should be settled before the year turns. Red clothes, red envelopes of money, firecrackers and the character fu ("blessing") pasted upside down, because the word for "upside down" sounds like "arrived", invite good fortune. The Tong Shu almanac gives auspicious days and directions, and the spellbook describes Chinese New Year rites for luck.

In Vietnam the custom of xông đất, "stepping on the earth", closely parallels first-footing: families choose a first visitor with a compatible zodiac sign and good character to enter the house after midnight. Korean families at Seollal hang a bokjori, a lucky strainer, to scoop up good fortune. Japan has celebrated New Year on 1 January since 1873, when it adopted the Gregorian calendar, but kept many older customs: the 108 strokes of temple bells on New Year's Eve, decorations of pine and bamboo, special foods whose names carry puns on longevity and prosperity, and hatsuyume, the first dream of the year, in which a vision of Mount Fuji, a hawk or an aubergine is especially lucky. More on these traditions appears in Asian Superstitions.

Foods and Colours for a Lucky Year Around the World§

The idea that food eaten at the turn of the year shapes the year to come is very old. The Babylonian Talmud (Horayot 12a) records the advice of the sage Abaye that, since omens have meaning, one should see or eat gourds, fenugreek, leeks, beets and dates at the start of the year, foods whose names in Aramaic suggested increase or the removal of enemies. Jewish families still eat these simanim at Rosh Hashanah, along with apple dipped in honey for a sweet year, a custom first recorded in medieval Ashkenaz; see Jewish Festivals and the Sabbath.

In the American South black-eyed peas, often with greens and cornbread, are eaten on New Year's Day for luck and money. In the Philippines families display twelve round fruits, wear polka dots and jump at midnight. In Iran, the Nowruz table of seven items beginning with "s" and the fire-jumping of the last Wednesday of the old year are described in Zoroastrian Calendar and Festivals. In Brazil many people wear white and jump seven waves on the beach for the sea goddess Iemanjá, as told in the entry on Brazilian New Year simpatias.

These customs are best understood as ways of making a fresh start visible. Few participants believe that a grape or a lump of coal determines their fortune, but the rituals mark the boundary of the year and let people express hope together.

Frequently asked questions§

What is first-footing?§

First-footing is a Scottish and northern English custom in which the first person to enter a house after midnight on New Year's Eve brings the household's luck for the year. Traditionally a tall, dark-haired man carrying coal, salt, bread or whisky was considered the luckiest first-foot.

Why do Spanish people eat twelve grapes at New Year?§

Each grape is eaten at one of the twelve strokes of midnight, and each is said to bring luck for one month. The custom became widespread in the early twentieth century, often linked to a large grape harvest around 1909.

Why shouldn't you sweep on Chinese New Year?§

Sweeping or taking out rubbish on the first day of the Lunar New Year is believed to sweep away the good luck that has just arrived. Houses are therefore cleaned thoroughly in the days before the festival instead.

Is it unlucky to give things away on New Year's Day?§

In many British and European traditions it was, especially fire, light or money, because luck was thought to leave with them. Early medieval sermons already mention people refusing to give fire to neighbours at the Kalends of January.

Sources and further reading§

• Fasti — Ovid, c. 8 CE
• The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain — Ronald Hutton, 1996
• The English Year — Steve Roud, 2006
• The Silver Bough — F. Marian McNeill, 1957
• On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity — Michele Renee Salzman, 1990
• Chinese Festivals — Wolfram Eberhard, 1952
• A Dictionary of Superstitions — Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, 1989