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Horseshoes and Luck
On this page you will read many legends about horseshoes and luck. Enjoy the reading.
All over the world, horseshoes and luck go hand in hand but you have to be very careful to hang the horseshoe with the toes pointing upwards because if the tips are facing down the luck could come out and the iron it will bring bad luck!
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Another legend about horseshoes and luck says that misfortune is held captive inside the iron and, since the evil spirit cannot find the opening at the top, it turns forever, never going out.
But the many traditions and many legends do not confirm whether the iron must be new or used, found or purchased and even if it can be touched or not.
Some legends attribute the fortune only to the owner of the horseshoe and not to the person who hangs it on the door.
Others say that if an iron is stolen or found, it will be the owner and not the person who found it, or stole it, to have luck while other legends say that the iron must be found by chance to be a real lucky charm.
But of course there are other legends about horseshoes and luck.
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At the time of the ancient Romans only the officers went on horseback while the troops marched on foot and the loss of an iron forced them to stop.
So the troops could rest and find horseshoes had become a game and whoever found more was the winner, and therefore the luckiest and it seems that the ancient Romans nailed the horseshoes to the walls also as a defense against the plague.
In the Middle Ages the horseshoe was even used as a means of healing and the Christians believed in horseshoes and luck because the horseshoe reminded the letter C of Christ.
In past centuries horseshoes were considered lucky charms because they resembled the crescent, the symbol of Isis, and also because iron was considered a metal with good properties against disease and the evil eye.
It is said that in England when a knight was forced to stop in front of a poor farmer because his horse had lost an iron, he could help him by giving him money.
In Ireland an ancient legend about horseshoes and fortune tells that one of the pagan gods lost a horseshoe that fell on the Smeraldine Islands, which were about to be submerged by the sea.
The waters stopped and the islands were not submerged.
According to other sources, the origin of horseshoes and fortune-telling is the shape that represents a female genital apparatus.
It was common opinion that the evil eye and the evil could easily be distracted by a sexual temptation and no longer wished to enter the house where the horseshoe was exposed.
In the Middle Ages, in fact, often on the facades of churches and their gates there were bas-reliefs depicting very explicit female genitals to capture the attention of demons and not allow evil spirits to enter.
Of course all these over-explicit incisions have been removed over time.
Now let’s go to China, where the horseshoes are said to bring luck due to the resemblance to the curved body of the sacred serpent Nagendra and in Turkey due to the resemblance to the crescent, symbol of the nation.
Let’s go back to England for horseshoes and luck because the legend of San Dunstan, a blacksmith who became archbishop of Canterbury in 959, nailed a horseshoe on the devil’s hoof while he was shoeing his horse and the devil was freed only after promising not to enter a place protected by a horseshoe on the door.
We have come to the end of this topic and we hope you enjoyed reading horseshoes and luck.
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