For hundreds of years people have shared mystical legends and traditions about the loss of baby teeth. The early Europeans buried children’s teeth to spare the child from hardships in their afterlife. The Vikings believed that children’s teeth had magical powers that could help them fight in battle. They would pay their children for their lost baby teeth and string them onto necklaces and other jewelry. However, the most widely practiced ritual, one that has been documented everywhere from Russia to New Zealand to Mexico, involves offering the lost tooth as a sacrifice to a mouse or rat, in the hopes that the child’s adult teeth will continuously grow like a rodents does; and grow as strong and sturdy as the rodent’s. Continue reading “The Origins of the Tooth Fairy!” →