Three on a Match (superstition)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Three on a Match is a supposed superstition among soldiers during the First World War. The superstition goes that if three soldiers lit their cigarettes from the same match, one of the three would be killed. Since then it has been considered bad luck for three people to share a light from the same match.

The idea was that when the first soldier lit his cigarette the enemy would see the light, when the second soldier lit his cigarette the enemy would take aim, and when the third soldier lit his cigarette the enemy would fire.

There was in fact no such superstition during the First World War. The superstition was invented about a decade later by the Swedish match tycoon Ivar Kreuger in an attempt to get people to use more matches.