Bridge Symbolic Meaning

A bridge is a means of connecting or uniting two separate places.

Symbolically a bridge can indicate a journey or transition. It can represent stability or conversely, a desire for change. In dreams bridges can represent difficult decisions, compromises or emotional junctions in one’s life.There existed a common belief in most of the ancient times whereas it was believed that if one ever tried to say goodbye while on bridge or while crossing one, that the person would never see them again as it was presumed to mean goodbye forever.

In most symbolic uses in reference to the bridge, it was believed to be a sign of crossing from life to death. There is also the belief that whenever a new bridge was constructed, whoever was the first to cross, that would be the one to be the ultimate sacrifice and would die in a mysterious manner. To avoid this, an animal would be pushed through first so as to avoid the death of a person who would first cross through it. The majority of people in Europe had the belief that if one tried to go through a bridge or tunnel over which a train was passing through, then that in itself was a sign of bad luck and was presumed to mean that at one point in one’s lifetime a terrible accident would happen. There also is the belief that is in common practice is that most people could not pass over a bridge behind a coffin or corpse.

In reference to the Gudgeonville bridge, it was believed to be the backbone of the devil and most instances whenever there was screams from the bridge at night, it was predicted to mean that soon somebody would drawn in that river and also was a sign that a child had fallen down the cliff into the river in the recent times. In addition to the supposition screams, there was also the common belief in that at times there would be heard sounds of hooves coming from the river. This was as a result of a tale that long existed about an owner of a horse who had beaten the horse to death upon refusal to cross the bridge and as a result there would be heard hooves of horses crossing the bridge at night.

There also existed the belief about a mule which had suffered a heart attack along that bridge. It was believed that when the owner of the mule had tried to spook it while crossing the bridge the mule suffered a heart attack and died. In some cases during the construction of bridges, there would be tied a coin to some iron and some wine would be added on it so that whoever crossed that bridge would bring good fortune In more modern times, people sometimes padlock their names to a bridge to denote love. There are many superstitions regarding a bridge, which can be associated with crossing life to death. It is bad luck to see someone stop and cross a bridge. Walking under a railway bridge is also considered bad luck. Especially if the train passes above.