Why do we (well, some of us) say 'White Rabbits' on the first day of a new month? What other phrases are there, presumably intended to bring good fortune?

Ed, I thought it was Rabbit Rabbit, funny you should bring that up, today when changing the calender I though Rabbit Rabbit! Maybe it is White Rabbit, is that why I never have good luck?

Lucky & Unlucky Rabbits

http://www.globalpsychics.com/lp/Superstition/rabbit.htm

We used to say (when we were kids.... and still occassionally when we feel kid-like):

"A pinch and a punch for the first of the month and no return tickets."

We've always said "rabbit rabbit" too.

no idea on the origin, but what i've always heard of people saying is "White Rabbit, White Rabbit"

The earliest-recorded written reference is in a 1920 Dornford Yates story, 'Courts of Idleness', where he writes: "On the first day of the month you have to say 'rabbits'..." Not until the Opies' 1959 'Lore and Language' did "white rabbits" appear in print. Clearly, the oral tradition is older but either still seems - as a superstition - to be relatively recent.

I can't imagine why any reference to rabbits having mystical overtones wouldn't have originated with the pagan religion from which sprang our Easter, that most blasphemous of "holy days".

As to other phrases that convoke good luck,
"I'm heavily into mutual funds" has always proved successful in the bar scene.

Your pagan religion idea, Scarlet, was the sort of thing I had in mind when I wrote - surprisedly - that the superstition "seems...relatively recent". In other words, one would imagine that someone would have mentioned it in writing, maybe centuries earlier, if it truly had an ancient origin...a little quote tucked away in Chaucer or a Shakespearean quip, perhaps. But there appears to be no such reference.

Maybe it was old, but by chance no literary giant picked up on it. After all, rabbits were so lucky even having one paw was said to bring good luck to the owner.
Or maybe rabbits were considered bringers of good luck, but no one ever thought to say 'rabbit' on the first of the month until the twentieth century, and this guy Yates was the first to put it in print. Or maybe none of the above.