Sacredness attaches to the threshold in Persia. It must not be trodden on; but it is often kissed by those who would step over it.[23]
A man should always cross himself when he steps over a threshold in Russia; and, in some portions of the realm, it is believed that he ought not to sit down on the threshold.[24]
High sills, or thresholds, so that one must step over, and not on, them, are in the houses of Finland, and in the houses of many Finns in the United States.[25] The same was true of many Teutonic houses.[26]
To shake hands across a threshold, instead of crossing it, is said, in Finland, to ensure a quarrel.[27] To step over a threshold is, in Lapland, to bring one under the protection of the family within, and of its guardian deity.[28] The same is true among the Magyars.[29]
The ancient Pythagoreans quoted various maxims, supposed to be from the sayings of their great founder, as teaching important lessons for all time. In these maxims there were indications of a peculiar reverence for the threshold and doorway. Thus: “He who strikes his foot against the threshold should go back;” it were unsafe to pursue a movement so inauspiciously begun. And, again: “The doors should be kissed fondly by those who enter or depart.”[30]
“Treading on the threshold was ... tabooed by the Tatars.”[31] Again, on the other side of the globe, in Samoa, to spill water on the door-step, or threshold, when food is brought in, is a cause of anger to the protecting deity of the family. It may drive him away.[32]
In Europe and in America it is by many counted an ill omen to tread upon the threshold of the door on entering a house. To the present day, in portions of Scotland, the idea popularly prevails, that to tread directly upon the boundary lines of division between ordinary flagstones is to endanger one’s soul; hence the very children are careful to avoid stepping upon those lines, in their walking across the courtyards or along the streets, in their every-day passing.
Many a person in the United States, who knows nothing of any superstition connected with this, avoids, if possible, stepping on, instead of over, the cracks or seams of a board walk, or even the seams of a carpet.
All these customs seem to be a survival of the feeling that the threshold is sacred as the primitive altar.