The therapeutic value of iron and its use as a medicament do not properly belong to our subject; and, indeed, neither the iron horse-shoe nor its counterfeit symbol have usually been much employed in folk-medicine. Professor Sepp, in his work on the religion of the early Germans, mentions, however, a popular cure for whooping-cough, which consisted in having the patient eat off of a wooden platter branded with the figure of a horse-shoe.
In France, also, a favorite panacea for children’s diseases consists in laying on the child an accidentally found horse-shoe, with the nails remaining in it; and in Mecklenburg gastric affections are thought to be successfully treated by drinking beer which has been poured upon a red-hot horse-shoe.[84]
Pliny ascribed healing power to a cast-off horse-shoe found on the road. The finder was recommended carefully to preserve such a horse-shoe; and should he at any future time be afflicted with the hiccoughs, the mere recollection of the exact spot where the shoe had been placed would serve as a remedy for that sometimes obstinate affection.[85]
In Bavaria a popular alleged cure for hernia in children is as follows: From a horse-shoe wherein all the nails remain, and which has been cast by a horse, a nail is taken; and when next a new moon comes on a Friday, one must go into a field or orchard before sunrise and drive the nail by three blows into an oak-tree or pear-tree, according to the sex of the child, and thrice invoke the name of Christ; after which one must kneel on the ground in front of the tree and repeat a Paternoster. This is an example of a kind of therapeutic measure not uncommon among peasants in different parts of Germany, a blending of the use of a superstitious charm with religious exercises.[86]
An ingenious theory ascribes the origin of the belief in the magical properties of iron to the early employment of the actual cautery, and to the use of the lancet in surgery.[87] In either case the healing effects of the metal, whether hot or in the form of a knife, have been attributed by superstitious minds to magical properties in the instruments, whereby the demons who caused the disease were put to flight. In northern India the natives believe that evil spirits are so simple-minded as to run against the sharp edge of a knife and thus do themselves injury; and they also make use of iron rings as demon-scarers, such talismans having the double efficacy of the iron and of the sacred circle.[88]
In Bombay, when a child is born, the natives place an iron bar along the threshold of the room of confinement as a guard against the entrance of demons.[89] This practice is derived from the Hindoo superstition that evil spirits keep aloof from iron; and even to-day pieces of horse-shoes are to be seen nailed to the bottom sills of the doors of native houses.[90] In east Bothnia, when the cows leave their winter quarters for the first time, an iron bar is laid before the threshold of the door through which the animals must pass, and the farmers believe that, if this precaution were omitted, the cows would prove troublesome throughout the summer.[91] So, too, in the region of Saalfield, in central Germany, it is customary to place axes, saws, and other iron and steel implements outside the stable door to keep the cattle from bewitchment.
The Scandinavian peasants, when they venture upon the water, are wont to protect themselves against the power of the Neck, or river-spirit, by placing a knife in the bottom of the boat, or by fixing an iron nail in a reed. The following is the translation of a charm used in Norway for this purpose:—
Neck, Neck, nail in water, the Virgin Mary casteth steel in water. Do you sink, I flit.
In Finland there is an evil fairy known as the Alp Nightmare. Its name in the vernacular is Painajainen, which means in English “Presser.” This unpleasant being makes people scream, and causes young children to squint; and the popular safeguard is steel, or a broom placed beneath the pillow.[92]
Friedrich remarks that the Moslems look upon iron as a divine gift, and that the Finlanders have their tutelary gods of this metal.