Walking under a ladder is usually remembered as a simple bad-luck taboo, but older folklore records attach strikingly different consequences to the same act. An English collection from 1787 warned that it might prevent marriage that year, while later records from Canada, Newfoundland, Ireland, Britain, and the United States associated the act with general misfortune, hanging, halted growth, disappointment, fixed periods of bad luck, or even death within a year.
The action remains remarkably consistent: avoid passing beneath the ladder. The predicted consequence does not. Traditional counter-actions also differed from place to place, ranging from making a wish or spitting after an accidental passage to crossing the fingers and waiting for someone else to speak.
What Was Supposed to Happen After Walking Under a Ladder?
General Bad Luck
The broadest version simply treats passing beneath a ladder as unlucky. Nineteenth-century records document this wording in Canada and Shropshire, while later Irish and American folklore collections preserve the same basic warning without requiring one particular misfortune to follow.
Marriage May Be Delayed
Francis Grose’s 1787 collection gives an unusually specific English version: walking under a ladder might prevent a person from marrying during that year. Later Shropshire folklore recorded the harsher idea that a young woman who did so would never marry, sometimes reduced to a seven-year delay.
Passing Under the Ladder Foretells Hanging
A Newfoundland tradition collected for Current Superstitions stated that a person who went under a ladder would be hanged. The same collection describes strong avoidance of ladders in St. John’s, where most of a group observed by the collector chose a muddy route rather than pass beneath one.
The Bad Luck Can Last for a Set Number of Years
The duration was never universal. A Schools’ Collection record from Dundalk states that walking under a ladder causes two years of bad luck, while a University of Detroit folklore record from Michigan gives seven years. The changing number shows how the same taboo could acquire different local rules.
More Specific Consequences in Irish Folklore
A Growing Person Will Stop Growing
Several Irish Schools’ Collection records connect the ladder taboo with physical growth. One Ballinamore record says that a person who walks beneath a ladder will never grow any more. Comparable versions were collected elsewhere in Ireland, especially in material recorded from children and families.
Death Before a Year Has Passed
A record from Abbeytown Convent National School in Boyle, County Roscommon, preserves a much darker prediction. The informant said that someone who walked under a ladder would be dead before the same date came around twelve months later. This is a documented local omen rather than a universal Irish belief.
Walking Under One on the Wedding Day Is Unlucky
A County Tipperary record narrows the taboo to a particular moment: walking under a ladder on one’s wedding day was said to bring bad luck. Here the ladder belief became part of a larger group of marriage-day omens rather than a warning applying equally to every occasion.
A Disappointment Will Follow
Not every version threatened lasting bad luck. Folklore collected in Roscommon states that walking under a ladder means the person will meet with a disappointment. The expected consequence is therefore narrower and less severe than the death, marriage, or multi-year bad-luck versions.
Traditional Ways of Trying to Undo the Bad Luck
Make a Wish After Passing Under the Ladder
In Cressage, Shropshire, an nineteenth-century folklore collection recorded a protective response rather than simple avoidance. A person who had gone beneath a ladder could make a wish, and the account said that the expected ill result would then be prevented.
Spit After Walking Beneath It
At Worthen in Shropshire, spitting was recorded as the customary response when someone accidentally walked under a ladder. The action belonged to a wider family of folk practices in which spitting was used symbolically to repel or neutralize unwanted luck.
Cross the Fingers and Make a Wish
A twentieth-century collection of Durham customs says that if someone had to pass under a ladder, crossing the fingers and making a wish could be used against the expected bad luck. This combines two familiar protective gestures rather than relying solely on avoiding the ladder.
Wait for a Companion to Speak First
The same Durham source records a less familiar rule for someone walking with another person: remain silent and allow the companion to speak first. Folklore interpreted this as shifting the threatened ill luck to the person who broke the silence.
How the Meaning Changes by Place
| Country or Culture | Documented Variation | Meaning | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Walking under a ladder may prevent marriage during that year | Marriage delay | English printed folklore record, 1787 |
| United Kingdom | Passing beneath a ladder is unlucky | Bad luck | Shropshire folklore recorded in the nineteenth century |
| United Kingdom | Make a wish after passing beneath the ladder | Protection | Cressage tradition |
| United Kingdom | Spit after accidentally passing beneath a ladder | Protection | Worthen tradition |
| United Kingdom | Cross the fingers and make a wish when passing beneath one | Protection | Durham custom recorded in Old Durham |
| United Kingdom | Remain silent until a companion speaks first | Protection | Durham custom recorded in Old Durham |
| Canada | It is unlucky to pass under a ladder | Bad luck | Recorded in Current Superstitions, 1896 |
| Canada | Going under a ladder means the person will be hanged | Death omen | Historic Newfoundland record |
| Ireland | Walking under a ladder brings two years of bad luck | Bad luck | Schools’ Collection record from Dundalk |
| Ireland | A person who walks under a ladder will not grow any more | Growth stops | Schools’ Collection record from Ballinamore |
| Ireland | Walking under a ladder on the wedding day brings bad luck | Marriage misfortune | Tradition recorded from a County Tipperary informant |
| Ireland | Walking beneath a ladder foretells disappointment | Misfortune | Schools’ Collection record from Roscommon |
| Ireland | The person will be dead before the same date twelve months later | Death omen | Abbeytown Convent N.S. folklore record |
| United States | Walking under a ladder brings seven years of bad luck | Bad luck | University of Detroit folklore record, 1968 |
| United States | Avoid walking under ladders because it brings bad luck | Bad luck | Family and workplace tradition recorded by Dartmouth |
The Origin Is Less Certain Than the Superstition
The surviving records do not point to one securely demonstrated starting place. Francis Grose was already recording the ladder taboo in England in 1787, where the stated consequence concerned marriage rather than sacred geometry. More than a century later, William Wells Newell associated ladder avoidance with ladders used in executions, and Newfoundland folklore also linked the act directly with hanging.
Modern explanations frequently invoke the triangle made by a leaning ladder, the Christian Trinity, ancient Egypt, or the Crucifixion. Such explanations appear in later folklore discussions and collector commentary, but they should not be treated as proof that the superstition began in one of those settings. The documentary evidence more safely shows that the taboo was established by the late eighteenth century and later accumulated different explanations, penalties, and remedies.
A Folk Omen and a Real Ladder Hazard Are Different Things
The traditional prediction of supernatural bad luck is a cultural belief, not a safety finding. A working ladder can nevertheless create real physical hazards. Occupational safety guidance stresses stable positioning, proper use, and keeping the areas around ladders clear. Walking around a ladder in use can therefore be sensible for practical reasons without treating the omen itself as predictive.
📚 Roots of Belief
- University of Salamanca, Salamanca Corpus — Francis Grose, A Provincial Glossary with a Collection of Local Proverbs and Popular Superstitions (1787) — Institutional record for Grose’s first edition, which contains the early English warning that walking under a ladder may prevent marriage during that year.
- Project Gutenberg — Fanny D. Bergen, Current Superstitions (1896) — Digitized historical collection published for the American Folk-Lore Society. It records the Canadian bad-luck version, the Newfoundland hanging belief, strong avoidance in St. John’s, and Newell’s discussion of execution associations.
- Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford — Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings — Historical regional folklore collection documenting the general ladder taboo, the Cressage wish, the Worthen spitting practice, and marriage-related versions.
- National Folklore Collection, UCD — Dundalk (St. Nicholas Monastery), Schools’ Collection — Archival Irish record stating that walking under a ladder brings two years of bad luck.
- National Folklore Collection, UCD — Béal an Átha Móir, Schools’ Collection — County Leitrim record stating that walking under a ladder means the person will never grow any more.
- National Folklore Collection, UCD — Baile Droichid, Cathair Dún Iascaigh, Schools’ Collection — County Tipperary record specifying bad luck from walking under a ladder on one’s wedding day.
- National Folklore Collection, UCD — Clochar na Trócaire, Roscomáin, Schools’ Collection — Roscommon folklore record connecting walking under a ladder with a future disappointment.
- National Folklore Collection, UCD — Abbeytown Convent N.S., Schools’ Collection — Boyle, County Roscommon record predicting death before twelve months have passed after walking beneath a ladder.
- University of Detroit Mercy — James T. Callow Folklore Archive — University folklore archive containing a 1968 Detroit record stating that walking beneath a ladder causes seven years of bad luck.
- Dartmouth Folklore Archive — “Walking under a ladder” — Modern American folklore collection documenting transmission of the bad-luck warning within a San Diego family and among painting coworkers.
- USC Digital Folklore Archives — “Walking Under a Ladder” — Contemporary California folklore record giving a seven-year bad-luck version and illustrating how safety and sacred-triangle explanations continue to be attached to the belief.
- Project Gutenberg — Old Durham — Historical Durham text recording crossed fingers, wishing, spitting, and waiting for a companion to speak as responses to passing beneath a ladder.
- U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration — Ladder Safety — Official workplace guidance on positioning, stability, clear areas around ladders, and other real physical hazards associated with ladder use.