Just turn it round, and soon you’ll see
How you and Fortune will agree.”
The farmer profited by the friendly suggestion and reversed his luck-token, whereupon the capricious goddess fairly beamed upon him. His barn was soon filled with hay, his storehouses were packed with the kindly fruits of the earth, while his wife presented him with twins.
Farmers may well take heed how they nail up horse-shoes over the doors of their barns. To obtain the best results, it would seem advisable to place a pair of these useful articles on each farm building, one with the points upward, the other reversed; for in this way they may not only hope to win Fortune’s smiles, but also to keep all witches and unfriendly spirits at a respectful distance.
In an interesting story for children in “St. Nicholas,” April, 1897, by Rudolph F. Bunner, entitled “The Horse-Shoe of Luck,” the writer introduces Luck in the character and garb of a wandering clown or jester, mounted upon a white horse. This jovial traveler seeks a night’s lodging at a wayside farmhouse, and when he has almost reached its hospitable door, his steed casts a shoe, which the farmer hastens to pick up and carefully hangs on a hook above the door. Luck proved to be a most amusing fellow, and after supper he entertained the children of the household in a royal manner, showing them, among other things, how to drop china and glass without breaking them, and how to tumble down stairs without getting hurt. So the evening passed merrily enough, and all retired for the night in a happy frame of mind. Early in the morning the farmer was awakened by the splash of raindrops upon his face, and, hastily arising, he discovered that the roof had sprung a leak, and that his guest had unceremoniously departed. Nettled by such conduct, the farmer and his family hastened in pursuit of the fleeing stranger, guided by the hoof-prints of his white horse; and when they had overtaken him, the farmer reproached his late guest for having left his house so abruptly. Whereupon Luck replied: “I left you, not because you could not even nail my horse-shoe over your door, but hung it upside down, so the luck ran out at the ends, but because of your own mistake. You trusted to me; you trusted to Luck. Ah ha!”
In the northernmost districts of Scotland exists a belief that if the first shoe put on the foot of a stallion be hung on the byre door, no harm will come near the cows; and in the same region, if a horse-shoe be placed between the houses of quarrelsome neighbors, neither incurs any risk of evil as a result of the other’s ill-wishes.[205]
As a means of warding off impending sickness from cattle, and in order that they may thrive during the summer, the Transylvanian peasants place broken horse-shoes in the animals’ drinking-troughs on St. John’s Day, June 24.
In Lincolnshire, not many years ago, there prevailed a custom of “charming” ash-trees by burying horse-shoes under them. Twigs from a tree thus magically endowed were believed to be efficacious in curing cattle over which a shrewmouse had run, or which had been exposed to the glance of an evil eye. To effect a cure in such cases, it was only necessary to gently stroke the affected animal with one of these twigs.[206]
Some years ago, a Golspie fisherman who owned a small boat was favored with an extraordinary run of luck in his fishing, and as a result of his good fortune was enabled to buy a larger vessel, selling the old one to a neighbor. From that time, however, his lucky star seemed to wane, and good “catches” were infrequent. Casting about in his mind for the reason of this, he bethought him of a stallion’s shoe which was fastened inside his former boat, and which had been given him by a “wise person.” But both boat and horse-shoe were now in the hands of his neighbor, who maintained with reason that the lucky token was now his property, as he had purchased “the boat and its gear.” And ever thereafter the disconsolate fisherman attributed his lack of success in that season to his own folly in having parted with the stallion’s shoe.[207]
The horse-shoe figures often in traditions of the sea as a protection to sailors. When the ghostly ship of the Flying Dutchman meets another vessel, some of its uncanny crew approach the latter in a boat and beg them to take charge of a packet of letters.