Sussex Superstitions If your cat sneezes once indoors, get it outside quick! Three indoor sneezes from a cat will bring the whole family down with colds. After eating an egg, break a hole in the bottom of the shell to stop witches putting to sea in it. A magpie seen on your left brings bad luck, unless you take off your hat and bow to it. These are just three of 195 ‘startling superstitions’ collected by Charlotte Latham, wife of the Vicar of Fittleworth, in 'Some West Sussex Superstitions Lingering in 1868'. Mrs Latham tried to find out the reasons for people’s beliefs. When she asked why people took their hats off to magpies, ‘they always answered that it was a bad bird, and knew more than it should do, and was always looking about and prying into other people's affairs.’ My favourite answer to such a ‘why’ question is a note in Dylan Thomas’s Collected Poems : ‘I read somewhere of a shepherd who, when asked why he made, from within fairy rings, ritual obs...