A cricket on the hearth has been a sign of household luck for thousands of years. And the idea is prevalent in every corner of the world. Possibly the belief stems from prehistoric times, when a cricket’s chirping provided a kind of companionship. The cricket has also served as a watchdog in China and other Asian countries for generations. At any sign of danger, the chirping will stop. Almost every Native American tribe believed in the cricket as a bringer of luck, and they regarded imitating the sound a cricket makes as disrespectful. In the Far East as well as across Europe, it is considered very bad luck to kill a cricket, even by accident. Images of crickets appear on charms and amulets, particularly those intended to ward off the evil eye, in most ancient cultures of the Middle East and Europe.
One of the best-known in America is the large weather vane on Boston’s Faneuil Hall, a copper cricket fashioned by our Colonial forefathers to protect the building.