THE PRACTICAL HORSESHOER. 9 



bearing's are, it is true, older than the regular establish- 

 ment of heraldry, but most likely the}^ were, together with 

 the family names, signs of office. The proper names of Mar- 

 shall and Smith are singularly typified by hammers, tongs, 

 anvils and horseshoes. 



THE *' CURVED CHARM.'' 



In regard to the superstition attached to the " curved 

 charm,'' it is universal. In Abyssinia, Barbar3^, and even in 

 Guinea, horseshoes are fixed on doors and the thresholds 

 of houses as much as in Europe, Asia and America. One 

 is seen carved on a pagan Runic monument of the eleventh 

 century, and the practice is known in Japan, China and 

 Persia, and it is traced upon the cabin door of the Hotten- 

 tot and the West Coast negro almost as frequently as on the 

 barn door of a Dutch or English farmhouse. The horse- 

 shoe may be seen nailed to the mast of the coasting vessels^ 

 not after the manner of antiquity, with the heels up, but 

 with the arch topmost. In Devonshire and Cornwall, 

 England, they are -nailed on the great west door of the 

 church ; also on the door of the church at Halcomber, 

 Devonshire, where formerly four horseshoes were seen, 

 possibly to keep off witches, whose especial amusement it 

 was 



"To untie the winds, and make them fight 

 Against the churches." 



/ Inquiry receives the same answer to symbolize a con- 

 temptible superstition in this country. Whittier says : 



'* And still o'er manj^ a neighbor's door 

 She saw the horseshoe's curved charm." 



** The cautious goodman nails no more 

 A horseshoe on his outside door, 

 Lest some unseemlj'^ hag should fit 

 To his own mouth her bridle bit,' 



