Touch a Rabbit’s Foot

A rabbit’s foot is often carried for good luck. Dangling from purses and back packs in high schools in the 80’s were colorful keychains displaying a rabbit’s foot. We all believed the folklore. Little did we know about the dark origins of this tradition.

While other collected versions disagree about exactly when the rabbit must be killed, all indicate that the rabbit’s foot historicizes an especially uncanny or evil time: the dark of the moon; a Friday; a rainy Friday; a Friday the Thirteenth.

Ellis writes that rabbit’s feet were sometimes considered lucky because of their association with the body of a criminal.

Grover Cleveland was said to have received the foot of a rabbit killed on the grave of Jesse James when Cleveland was running for president in 1884.

Writing about this more than 50 years later, Puckett observed: the more wicked the person was the more effective the charm associated with his remains.

History.Com

How can wickedness become a sign of luck? And, what is luck?

Luck is the notion that success or failure is apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.

I don’t want luck. It seems to me an association with the wicked. Don’t they believe that by luck they will outgrow their transgressions and be held to no accountability?

There is no luck for that.

I have faith and that trumps luck every time. I don’t need luck. I have Jesus. My future is secure — no luck needed.

Originally published at http://prisonerbynocrimeofmyown.com on March 14, 2022.