Spider and web
A spider hanging from its web, the sign of a dusty, empty house. In the British folklore Brand collected, spiders were lucky and killing one was unlucky.
Meaning
The US Fish and Wildlife Service explains the Halloween spider by the places their webs are found, dark places, old buildings and “haunted” houses, and through the season: many spiders mate in autumn, so they and their webs are easier to see in September and October. In witch-trial lore a witch’s familiar could be a spider, as well as a cat or a toad (National Geographic).
Origin and history
Brand’s Popular Antiquities (1853) records that it was “vulgarly thought unlucky to kill spiders”, a belief that served, he wrote, “as an apology for the laziness of housewives in not destroying their cobwebs.” He traced it to the magicians of ancient Rome who, according to Pliny, read omens from the way spiders wove their webs. Small spiders called money spinners were held to bring good luck, so long as they were not harmed or brushed off the person they landed on.
Autumn webs had their own lore. Brand quotes Gilbert White on gossamer, the webs that cover fields in fine autumn weather: whatever superstitions once surrounded them, White wrote, nobody now doubted they were “the real production of small spiders”.
Read next
- Next in Halloween symbolsOwlAn owl, the night bird of Halloween. Roman and later English writers took its cry as an omen of death; in Greek myth it was the bird of Athena, goddess of wisdom.
- In Animal symbolismSpider symbolismIn British and American folklore it is unlucky to kill a spider, and a small one on your clothes means money or a letter. In stories the spider is a weaver and a bringer: Arachne in Ovid, Spider Woman in Diné (Navajo) tradition, the Cherokee Water Spider who brought fire, and Anansi of the Gold Coast and Jamaica.
See also
Black cat, Jack-o’-lantern, Witch’s hat and broom, Bat, Skeleton and skull, Ghost.
Sources
- Wings, Whiskers, and Webs (US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2025), US Fish and Wildlife Service, story, September 2025, US Fish and Wildlife Service, section on spiders
- Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (John Brand, ed. Henry Ellis, 1853), John Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, arranged and revised by Sir Henry Ellis, vol. 3 (London: Bohn, 1853), Internet Archive (University of Toronto copy), Spiders, Snakes, Emmets, &c., pp. 223–224
- How broomsticks, cauldrons, and pointy hats became essential witch gear (Johnna Rizzo, National Geographic, 2024), Johnna Rizzo, National Geographic, 25 October 2024 (adapted from The History of Witchcraft, 2024), National Geographic, section on familiars
The same shape elsewhere
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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 30, 2026. How we research
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