The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-04

" CAAO IL - oANNA NSt SOAhNC ~ w NJ
must take it in, as it presages good luck;
that if you cut your nails on Sunday you
will do something within the week of which
you will be ashamed; or to meet and pass
a person on the stairs is an omen of i'll
luck. These are but a few of the many
superstitious ideas held by those who be-
lieve in omens and signs. Here are a few
waits and strays collected by the writer.
Splitting salt is generally held to be a very
unlucky omen. It is believed that some
thing evil will happen to the family or the
person splitting it. According to a general
superstition this sign dates back to the
time of the Last Supper, when one of the
disciples, perhaps the betrayer, Judas Is
CARROT, overturned the salt cellar. The fol-
lowing lines are found in an old English
newspaper:
Wen tell you the reason
Why splitting of salt
Is esteemed such q fault:
Because it does everything season.
The antiques did opine
Twas of friendship a sign
To serve it to guests in deocrum,
And thought love decayed
When the negligent maid
Let the salt cellar tumble Before them"
It is generally believed that the evil cor
sequences OF an accident of this kind may
be averted by eating a pinch of what was
spilled, or throwing it in the fire or over
the left shoulder. A gentleman renting a
house in Wales, and purchasing part of
the furniture of the former occupant, was
advised to buy the salt box, which he did,
no one bidding against him. He was aft
erwards informed that ill luck would have
followed him if he had not bought it. In
some parts of the north country it is re-
garded as unlucky to put salt on another
persons plate. Hence the couplet:
Help me to salt,
Help me to sorrow"
A second helping, however, is supposed
to avert the i'll luck, on the principle that
like cures like" For salt to fall toward
a person at table portends coming dire dis
aster. The splitting of salt has for many
generations been counted unlucKy in por-
tons of England and Germany. In the
Isle of Man there is a lingering supersti-
ton that to carry salt in the pocket is a
sure means to bring good fortune, and TO
accept or exchange salt is so good an
omen that a beggar has been known to
decline food unless salt was added to the
gift.
THE HORSESHOE TALISMAN.
The horseshoe superstition has always
been a difficult one to trace to its origin;
but it most likely came from the belief of
the ancient Aryan race, since the horse
was one of the most sacred animals of their
religion. One of the great rites of the early
Hindoo religion was the sacrifice of the
horse, which seems to have been eaten
sacramentally by its devotees. In the early
Sanskrit epics the Aryans are represented
as shaving and eating the holy beast with
great pcmp and ceremony. By eating their
god thuy were supposed to take into them
selves, as it were, some elements of their
divinity. In northern Europe the horse was
the peculiar beast of Thor, and was re-
crardod &c "a Gacred animal The ia noIIS
white horses on the Berkshire and Somer-
setshire hills are memorials of this ancient
sanctity; and it is pretty clear that horses,
as such, received divine honors in early
Britain. 1t is also evident from the ser
mons and epistles of the early Christian
missionaries, which are full of denuncia-
lions of people who eat horsefiesh, that the
horse was sacrificed in Britain by their
worshipers and sacramentally eaten.
Almost all our superstitions date back to
heather times, but in the course of time
they have been slightly and superfcially
Christianized so as to bring them into
harmony with the general body of public
opinion. So it is not at all unlikely that
when the horseshoe superstition first arose
people specially selected the horseshoe as
the best available piece of iron to repel the
attacks of trolls or fairies, witches or war
locks, and other evil Influences, because
it had a certain inherent sanctity of its
own, derived from its connection with a
sacred animal. The horseshoe was not
only set up for the purpose of driving off
these evil spirits, but also to bring good
luck
In Morocco iron is considered a great
protection against demons, who are the
lneal representatives after all, of the hos
| tile spirits, says the Cornhill Magazine.
Hence it is usual to place a dagger or
knife under a sick mans pillow, his illness,
of course, being attributed to demoniacal
possession. In India the mourner who per-
forms the necessary but somewhat danger
Gus duty of putting fire into the dead mans
mouth carries a key or knife in his hand
to keep off the evil spirits. During the
primitive common meal at the Christmas
feast of the Black mountain peasantry the
iron fire shovel, the low round table,, the
three-legged stools and the one chair are
removed from the neighborhood of the
hearth and hidden away in an obscure cor
ner. a custom wonderfully significant of
| times when iron and tables were I'M
known. In Tyler's Early History of Man
| kind the iron age man is said to hold
TO the superstition that he must not put
4 knife near the fire and that to give 1t
to a friend is sure to cause a severing of
| friendship between the giver and the re-
cipient. In the early period of the iron
age. when iron was very rare and of much
value, the ladies of Lancashire considered
it very lucky TO find old iron and a horse
| shoe or rusty nail were carefully taken
home and boarded up
In F~ornander's "Polynesian Race may
be found a version of the superstition con-
corning the spider. II a long-legged spider
drops down from above or in front of you
ii is a good sign. foreboding either pres
enfs or strangers if he drops on either
side or behind You, the sign Is ominous.
IN England for Al spider To descend upon
rou from above is an omen that you are