In Teviotdale, Scotland, “when Spiders creep on one’s clothes, it is viewed as betokening good luck; and to destroy them is equivalent to throwing stones at one’s own head.”[1143]
In Maryland, this superstition is thus expressed: If you kill a Spider upon your clothing, you destroy the presents they are then weaving for you.
In the Secret Memoirs of Mr. Duncan Campbell, p. 60, in the chapter of omens, we read that “others have thought themselves secure of receiving money, if by chance a little Spider fell upon their clothes.”[1144]
“When a Spider is found upon your clothes, or about your person,” says a writer in the Notes and Queries,[1145] “it signifies that you will shortly receive some money. Old Fuller, who was a native of Northamptonshire, thus quaintly moralizes this superstition: ‘When a Spider is found upon your clothes, we used to say some money is coming toward us. The moral is this: such who imitate the industry of that contemptible creature may, by God’s blessing, weave themselves into wealth and procure a plentiful estate.’”[1146]
A South Northamptonshire superstition of the present day is, that, in order to propitiate money-spinners, they must be thrown over the left shoulder.[1147]
It is most probable that Euclio, in Plautus’ Aulularia,
would not suffer the Spiders to be molested because they were considered to bring good luck.
Staphyla. Here in our house there’s nothing else for thieves to gain, so filled is it with emptiness and cobwebs.
Euclio. You hag of hags, I choose those cobwebs to be watched for me.[1148]
A superstition prevails among us that if a Spider approaches, either by crawling toward or descending from the ceiling to a person, it forebodes good to such person; and, on the contrary, if the Spider runs hurriedly away, it is an omen of bad luck. But if the Spider be a poisonous one, or a Fly-catcher, and it approaches you, some evil is about to befall you, which to avert you must cross your heart thrice.
If you kill a Spider crossing your path, you will have bad luck.