Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1889-01-17
THE HORSESHOE SUPERSTITION.
The Custo ON of Mailing One Over The
Door for Good Luck.

The custom of mailing n 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 oil the
Teutonic and Scandinavian races, and
fiourishes apace in Hindostan. The
horseshoe unites within itself three
lucky elements-it is crescent-sbaped, il
is 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
countries, iron has been the metal latest
worked, it naturally Inherited the virtues
of the others. The Romans drove nails
into the walls of cottages as an antidote
to the plague. When Arabs in the des-
ert are overtaken by simeon, they
seek to propitiate the Jinns, who have
raised it, by crying, 'Iron! Iron!" The
Scandinavian exercises the Neckan OF
river spirits with an open knife in the
bottom of his boat, or o nail set in a
reed, singing:
NecKan, Neckan, nall IN wafer!
The Virgin Mary eastern steel in water!
Do yon sink, / 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 chung.
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 a specific for
many complaints in rural districts, "In
Ireland" Camden says, "when a horse
dies his feet and legs are hung up in the
house, and even the hoofs are sacred"
On account of it's form there is no
doubt that the qualities anciently as.
cribed 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 ornaments shaped in this way
have 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 Herrick, in his "Hesperides. -
says:
Hang up hooks and shears to scare
Hence the haJ thai rides thp mira
All these have this curved or forked
shape, terminating in two points. The
seal OF Solomon, infelicitously styled
the pentacle, was supposed to have
great power, and it consisted of two
triangles, presenting six forks. In Italy
and Spain the evil eye is averted by ex.
tending the foretinger and little finger
forward like pair OF horns, the two
middle fingers being bent down under
the thumb. The Chinese have their
tombs built in q semi-circular form, like
horseshoe, and the Moors are also
wont to use it in their architecture.
The fact that the nimhus or halo which
IN old pictures surrounds the heads of
saints and angels bears q rude resem-
blanoe to horseshoe is no doubt one of
the many accidental condolences that
have strengthened this popular supersti-
ton.
The belief in the horseshoe attained
its greatest diffusion at the end of the
last century and the beginning of this.
Aubrey, in his "Miscellanies, tells us
that in his time most houses in the west
end OF London had horseshoe nailed
over the threshold. In 1878 Sir Henry
Ellis counted II horseshoes in Mon
mouth street, but in 1S41 only five or
six remained. Lord Nelson nailed a
horseshoe to the mast of the Victory.
and "Lucky DIR. James" attributed the
success of his fever powders to the find
ing of horseshoe, which symbol he
adopted as crest for his carriage. st.
Louis Glo6e-Democrat.