Yesterday’s topic discussed how some people believe a rabbit’s foot can bring you good luck. But there are a lot of “good luck charms” and some of them don’t seem to make much sense. But they’ve all earned their place in the “lucky” category for various reasons.
In the past I’ve mentioned our Friend Anne. She has a horseshoe over the inside of her front door. I’ve never asked her about it, but it’s there for luck. We’ve all had good luck charms in our lives — I remember having a rabbit’s foot (like we talked about yesterday) on a key chain when I was a kid and believed that it brought me good luck. People have four-leaf clovers, lucky pennies, lucky shirts, etc. Your don’t see them so much anymore (maybe because horses aren’t as common as they once were) but when I was growing up, it was commonplace to see a horseshoe somewhere in or on the house.
So how did horseshoes become a lucky charm? Like a lot of these things, no one really knows for sure but one of the more popular theories is that horseshoes became synonymous with luck when St. Dustan, the patron saint of blacksmiths in the Catholic Church, tricked the devil. The story goes something like this….
When a man came into Dustan’s blacksmith shop asking to be shod in horseshoes, he realized that the request was unusual, and then saw that his customer had a cloven foot — he was shoeing the devil himself. Dustan, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury, tortured the devil with hot irons and nails until the devil promised that neither he nor any of his demons would enter a building protected by a horseshoe.
The basic metal makeup of horseshoes contributed to it becoming a lucky charm. Most of the early horseshoes were made of iron, which is a durable metal but is also thought to have mystical powers — it has magnetic properties and runs abundantly through human bodies. Witches were said to be so fearful of the iron-made horseshoes that they decided to take flight on broomsticks instead of riding on horses for transportation.
Even the number of nail holes made the horseshoe lucky. Seven holes were made in the shoe to hold it in place on the hoof. It just so happens that seven is one of the luckiest numbers on earth, because it appears so often in nature. There are seven days in a week, seven seas, seven continents, seven colors in a rainbow, etc.
Most all the horseshoes I’ve seen hung over doorways are hung with the open area up — like the letter “U.” But apparently some people think it should be hung with the opening facing down. Hanging a horseshoe “heels up” means it keeps all the good luck from running out of the shoe. Hanging it “heels down” means it flows good luck down on everyone who walks underneath it. I guess they both make sense, so if I can find some horseshoes, maybe I’ll hang two — one each way…. couldn’t hurt.
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