Here's one I found interesting. I've had knives that obviously "weren't happy" they had bad karma or something and they cut everyone who used them. I've always reversed bad karma in a knife by treating it well until it gets happy then it will quit biting you!! Conversely if you mistreat a knife it gets unhappy and will turn vicious.

A baker friend of mine was telling me an old collegue of his suggested burying the knife for 7 days. Has anyone ever heard of this?

the chef

I never get involved with superstitions Burying a knife is an interesting way to develop rust , I mean 'patina' !!

I once knew a particularly obnoxious IRS agent. He was the one that enjoyed auctioning off your house and possesions to pay back taxes.
Anyway within a couple months span he lost his job due to corruption charges, one of his legs due to a fiddleback spider bite, and wrecked his truck 3 times once due to forgetting he was missing a leg! - True story I'm not kidding.
I guess Bad Karma was about as good a way to describe it as any..................DJ

Mete, here's another "superstition" I've quit sharpening knives for other folks. Virtually every time I do it the person will cut themselves within a few minutes.

the chef

When I'm visiting and asked to cook or carve I take the usually cheap dull knives and find something to sharpen them with. After I'm finished I run the edge along the sharpener to dull the blade ! People used to dull blades handle them very carelessly !!!

I met my wife (also a top class chef) because I was sharpening some friends knives at a superbowl party, so I dunno about it being bad ALL the time!

The first present my wife gave me was an old but not abused Schrade with leather washer handle, which i promptly broke.
Yes, I have knives that have "karma"; one, made by a Native American friend many years ago is the luckiest knife I've ever had, I take game every time I take it with me, it's gotten so I don't carry any other when I'm deer hunting, another, a Schrade "sharp finger", cuts me every time I pick it up. Once sat on it in a hunt camp in SC and had to have 5 stiches in my ass, before we hunted a day. I gave it to my wife.

Another old superstition is that you never give a knife away with out getting a coin in return,
so that it dosnt "cut" the friendship. I really do not know just where this comes from, picked it up from my grandparents.

Fred my friend your superstition has been perverted like a bad story through a crowd. The tradition did start with natives. It is bad luck not to give COPPER (pennies maybe) in return for a gift knife, as this will curse the knife and cause bad luck to be attracted to the receiver. In the days that this was tradition, a knife was a life giving instrument of such importance that a worthy gift was mandatory in return. Copper had religious signifigance to some tribes.

generally, i don't consider a knife "mine" until it bites me...