Mexico weekly ledger., 1909-04-01
LUCK In HORSESHOE
ODD POINTS ABOUT THIS WIDELY
ACCEPTED BELIEF.
Dates Back to the Mythology Of the
Ancient Greeks-onee Generally
Considered a Specific Against
Earthquakes.

or all the emblems for good fortune
the horseshoe stands among the first.
Everybody knows 1t is unlucky TO
pass a horseshoe on the road without
picking II up. 1t is a luck emblem OF
the g~reatest power. Again, We are in
debted for this statement to old tales,
centuries 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 1t 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, 1t may depart
almost as SOC as 1t 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 1t home It is correct
to hold It with the ends upward or the
earth Will attract to itself all the prom
ised 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 nulllied. Instead
Of keeping evil spirits away, the shoe,
In the wrong position, will attract
theml Instead Of bringing good for
tune, the luck OF the house will be
diverted.
A century ago It was very common
to see upon a cowshed door the horse
shoe that scared OF witches who
would milk 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.
To Poseidon horses were sacred,
and 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 after
wards 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 wandered by
the shores of his ocean domain and
where he struck his hoofs deeply
there the waters gushed out and per
manent springs were found.
This is the reason why horseshoes
are reckoned lucky. Going to the roo
Of the matter, one ices a nature mytf
as the root principle. From the ses
all rain comes, and to the sea al
springs owe primal origin; and to thu
rain and the fresh waters, sea derived
we owe all fertility on earth.
The old Greeks therefore worshipet
Poseidon as the fortune giver through
his springs. They gave him horses
his precious beasts, and they adoret
the footprints Of horses when the.
found them, for they might be thu
very footprints of the god himself.
Pegasus, the winged horse, from
whose hoofs the water spring
gushed copiously when he came tt
earth, has been credited with thu
origin of the horseshoe luck.
Some legends called him the o o
Poseidon. and therefore gifted by hi
father with power to call the water
from the earth. Other legends stat
that Pegasus sprang from the trunl
Of Gorgon Medusa. after Perseus ha'
cut off her head. He had the power o
producing famous springs which CAV
the gift of poesy, of art, Of intellectual
powers. From these springs TIL
muses. drank yearly.
The horseshoe vas a specific agains
earthquakes. 1t would keep a hous
safe from harm by earth shaking
Again, one perceives the sea myth
Poseidon was the shaker Of the earth