Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1909-03-11
LUCK IN HORSESHOE
ODD POINTS ABOUT THIS WIDELY
ACCEPTED BELIEF.
Dates Back to the Mythology of the
Ancient Greeks-Once Generally
Considered Specific Against
Earthquakes.

OF all the emblems for good fortune
the horseshoe stands among the first.
Everybody knows it is unlucky to
pass horseshoe on the road without
picking it up. 1t is a luck emblem of
the greatest 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 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 may 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 m.
And in carrying 4 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 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
diverted.
A century ago it was very common
to see upon cowshed door the horse
shoe that scared off 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
sprang from the hole, which after
wards became spring. The sea god
was the lord Of springs. To him all
springs were ascribed. In the shape
Of 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 reckoneA lucky. Going to the root
of the matter, one sees 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 worshiped
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 footprints of the god himself.
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 house
safe from harm by earth shaking
Again, enc perceives the sea myth
Poseidon was the shaker of the earth.