News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-12-06
THE HORSESHOE SUPERSTITION.
The Gust ON of Mailing One Over The
Door for Good Luck

The custom of mailing a horseshoe
over the door of house or other build
ing as protection against evil spirits
and an assurance of good luck is widely
spread over England and the United
States. 1t also fingers among all the
! Teutonic and Scandinavian races, and
tlourlshes apace in Hindostan. The
! horseshoe unites within itself three
lucky eIements-it is crescent-sbaped, il
/ is y portion of horse, and it is made
| OF IRON. Popular superstition has long
/ endowed iron with protecting powers.
Such powers attached in some degrees
to most metals, but since, in most
cOun ries, iron has been the metal latest
worked, it naturally inherited the virtues
of the others. The Romans drove nails
in to the walls of cottages as an antidote
to the plague. When Arabs in the des-
ert are overtaken by simoom, they
seek to propitiate the Jinns, who have
raised it, by crying, "Ironl Ironl' The
Scandinavian exercises the Neckan or
river spirits with an oren knife in the
bottom of his boat, or nail set in q
reed, singing:
Necksn, Neckar, nail in ter!
he Virgin Mary eastern steel in water
Do yon sink l fit.
Celtic, Finnish and Welsh supersti-
tions agree that iron is guard against
wItchcraft. 1t has always been held a
good omen to find old iron, and as horse
shoes are the readiest form in which old
iron could be found, it is naturally the
form to which the remnant of the super
stition has longer clung.
Horses, in the proper mythology of
England, were looked upon as luck
bringers. In Yorkshire it is still thought
that diseases may be cured by burying
a horse alive. A horses hoof placed |
under an invalid's bed is n specific for
many complaints in rural districts, "In |
Ireland" Camden says, "whcn a horse |
dies his feet and legs are hung up in the |
house, and even the hoofs are sacred"
On account of its form there is no |
donbt that the qualities anciently as
crlbed to the crescent have been trans
ferred to the horseshoe. The crescent,
like the horseshoe, is semi-circular and
presents two points. From the earliest
antiquity orname nts shaped in this way
nave been popular as preservatives
against danger, and especially against
evil spirits. Hudibras embalms this
ancient superstition in the couplet:
Chase evil spirits away by dint
Of sickle, hor, eshoe and hollow flint.
And Herlick, in his "Hesperides."
ays:
Hang up hooks and shea to sea Q
Hence the kag tha rides the mare.
All these have this curved or fcrked
hape, terminating in two points. The
cal of Solomon, infelicitously styled
ho pentacle, was supposed to have
reat power, and it consisted of two
presenting six forks. In Italy
nd Spain the evil eye is averted by ex-
ending the forefinger and little finger
'rward like pair of horns, the two
lddle fingers being bent down under
le thumb. The Chinese have their
mbs built in a ser.ni-circ1lInr form, like
and The MOOTs are also | ii
Ont to 1t in t1aeir orehitset%,rs-- | j,
ne fact that the nimbus or halo which h
old pictures surrounds the heads of n
ints and angels bears a rude 1esem- S
ance to horseshoe is no doubt one of C
e many accidental condolences that f
I'VE srengthened this popular supersti +
On. /
The belief in the horseshoe attained i
5 greatest diffusion at the end of the /
st century and the beginning of this.
ubrey, in his "Miscellanies," tells us t
at in his time most houses in the west I
id OF London had a horseshoe nailed |
7er the threshold. In 1913 Sir Henry
Ills counted II horseshoes in Mon /
outh street, but in 1871 only five or I
X remained. Lord Nelson nailed o I
1rseshoe to the mast of the Victory, '
Id "Lucky DIR. James" attributed the c
lccess of his fever powders to the find t
e of horseshoe, which symbol he {
lopted as a crest for his carriage.-,St. '
0ltis Gl0Jc-DenlOcTat. !