Discussion | The Myth To Whistling At Night
Updated: Dec 15, 2021
Remember when your parents telling you to not whistle when the sun sets and you always wonder why?
It is a common belief in many cultures that whistling at night will attract supernatural beings or even bring about bad luck. Some even say that whistling at night allow evil spirits to get hold of your body and haunt you for the rest of your life. Scary huh?
But how did this belief came about? Let's find out.
Why Is Whistling At Night Bad?
Whistling is the act of creating a sound using your mouth, making a certain oval shape with it and the sound that whistling make can be loud.
Turkish villagers use whistling as a method of communication since whistling can be heard miles away and is effective for long distance communication. However, this brings to the problem of it.
Whistling may be too loud for its sake.
In many different cultures, whistling at night is considered bad since it disrupts the peace of the night. By interrupting the serenity of the night with a loud whistle, it is normal to think that bad things can happen to those who whistled.
Debunking The Myth
In Asian countries like Japan and Korea, it is believed that whistling at night can bring about snakes. Yes, that's right, snakes. But you're probably wondering, "How do snakes even come about in the first place? What if the places don't have any snakes at all?"
Our answer to that is probably because the myth is fake. In the past, snakes are prevalent in Korea and can be found frequently. However, snakes are not attracted to whistling. Instead, it is a folklore told by the elders to children so that they would not make noise in the night to disturb their neighbors. This little story then passed down generation by generation and led to this myth that "whistling at night can bring about snakes".
In the UK, there is even this superstitious belief in the "Seven Whistlers" which are seven mysterious birds or spirits who call out to foretell death or a great calamity. This belief was fairly common among seamen and coal-miners in the 19th century. Whistling is a sign of bad luck for these people.
It is said that once the coal-miners or seamen heard the sound of whistling, they must immediately stop their work and return home, otherwise their lives will be lost. It is also said that these birds are the fallen comrades of the workers and are warning those that are going to meet their ends.
To this myth, it is unsure of whether it is real or fake. There is no evidence to prove that this superstition is wrong or right. Either way, this has severely affected the way whistling is perceived by this certain group of people.
Whistling superstitions may be terrifying and it is best for us to not whistle at night even if they sound absurd or crazy.
There are many things in this world that we cannot explain and this is also one of it.