The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1909-01-27
HORSESHOE STRONGEST
GOOD LUCK EMBLEM
Its Adflerents Have Sworn by
Its Charm for Centuries.

OF all the emblems for good fortune,
the horseshoe stands among the first.
Everybody knows it is unlucky to pass
a horseshoe on the road without pick
ing it up. 1t is a luck emblem of the
greatest power. Again, we are indebt-
ed for his statement to old tales, CEN
turtles in age that have descended from
father to son, from mother to daughter,
through the years.
1t is necessary to notice how the
horseshoe lies before picking it up. If
the ends are away from one, the sign
is that fortune will be within grasp,
but by extravaganza, carelessness or
the operation of rogues it nay depart
almost as soon as it comes A sign to
take care is given, therefore.
The right thing to do is to turn the
horseshoe around, so that the ends are
toward the finder, before picking it up.
And in carrying it home it is correct to
hold it with the ends upward or the
earth will attract to itself all the prom
Used fortune.
When the shoe is nailed up on door
or window in its destined place the
ends must be upward, or the whole
luck emblem will be nullified. Instead
of keeping evil spirits away, the shoe,
in the wrong position, will attract
them! Instead of bringing good for
tune, the luck of the house will be di-
verted.
1t is supposed that the element of
electricity enters into the matter. From
the shoe proceeds a current of bene-
ficent rays that, ithw the ends up
ward, will spread over the house as a
protecting influence; with the ends
downward, the good rays are drawn
into the all-receiving, all-giving earth,
and with them man. of the good in
fiuences that are about the place.
A century ago it was very common to
see upon a cowshed door the horseshoe
the COWS or dry them up. Nowadays
they are not SO common, yet here and
there they are still seen. =
The old myths repay research. The
luck of the horseshoe has a most re-
spectacle beginning. 1t is traced to the
religion of the old Greeks and their sea
god Poseidon, who was identical with
the Roman sea god Neptune.
IL L GU iA0AE( ~ ~ ~ tAA1
to him they were sacrificed. Poseidon
was believed to have created the first
horse when he struck the ground with
his trident and a horse sprang from the
hole. which afterward became a spring.
The sea god was the lord of springs.
To him all springs were ascribed. In
the shape of a horse he sometimes wan
dered by the shores of his ocean do
main, and where he struck his hoofs
dee ply there the waters gushed out and
ornament springs We're found.
This is the reason why horseshoes
are reckoned lucky. Going to the root
of the matter, one sees a nature myth
as the root principle. From the sea all
rain comes and to the sea all
springs owe primal origin; and to the
rain and the fresh waters, sea derived,
we owe all fertility on earth.
The old Greeks therefore worshipped
Poseidon as the fortune giver through
his springs. They gave him horses, his
precious beasts, and they adored the
footprints of horses when they found
them, for they might be the very foot
prints of the god himself.
When horses came to be shod the
transition of the luck emblem from the
footprint itself to the shoe mark-prac-
teal ythe same thing-was easy.
Pegasus, the winged horse, from
whose hoofs the water springs gushed
copiously when he came to earth, has
been credited with the origin of the
horseshoe luck.
Some legends called him the son of
Poseidon. and therefore gifted by his
father with power to call the waters
from the earth. Other legends state
that Pegasus sprang from the trunk of
Gorgon Medusa after Perseus had cut
off her head. He had the power of
producing famous springs which gave
the gift of poesy, of art. Of intellectual
powers. From these springs the muses.
drank yearly.
The horseshoe was a specific against
earthquakes. 1t would keep a house
safe from harm by earth shaking.
Again one perceives the sea myth
Poseidon was the shaker of the earth.-
Chicago Journal.