Current Superstitions: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Current Superstitions, credited to Fanny Dickerson Bergen, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Current Superstitions by Fanny Dickerson Bergen. No matter how enlightened, chances are you've been raised around superstitious lore of one kind or another. Fanny Dickerson Bergen was one of the original researchers of North American oral traditions relating to such key life events and experiences as babyhood and childhood, marriage, wishes and dreams, luck, warts and cures, death omens and mortuary customs, and "such truck," as Huck Finn would say. You'll be surprised at how many of these old saws you'll know. Here's a quote from Chapter One, Babyhood: Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is sour and sad, Thursday’s child is merry and glad, Friday’s child is loving and giving, Saturday’s child must work for a living; But the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is blithe and bonny, good and gay. --Baldwinsville, N. Y. All of these readings are as short as 5 minutes and no longer than 15 minutes, with plenty of pithy one-liners in the form of proverbs, always given with the locale they came from in Canada or the United States (with clear influences in British tradition). (summary by Denny Sayers)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Current Superstitions
• Author credits: Fanny Dickerson Bergen
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 21
• Listed recording duration: 4:36:26

Catalogue topics

• audio
• classic
• tradition

Track guide

1. 01 Babyhood — 14:08
2. 02 Childhood — 10:31
3. 03 Physical Characteristics — 10:35
4. 04 Projects — 34:06
5. 05 Halloween and Other Festivals — 7:37
6. 06 Love and Marriage — 16:15
7. 07 Wishes — 6:11
8. 08 Dreams — 17:35
9. 09 Luck — 18:27
10. 10 Money — 4:12
11. 11 Visitors — 10:20
12. 12 Cures — 13:49
13. 13 Warts — 10:42
14. 14 Weather — 21:07
15. 15 Moon — 16:16
16. 16 Sun — 5:15
17. 17 Death — 15:37
18. 18 Mortuary Customs — 7:27
19. 19 Misc.: Actions — 13:54
20. 20 Misc.: Bodily Affections and Apparel — 9:37
21. 21 Misc.: Customs, Days, Domestic Life and Various — 12:51

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.