Horseshoe over/on door -- lore, legends?

[OverandOnward]

@Amberley

That’s a very old belief. Pliny the Elder advocated three nails in the lintel above the door for luck in a triangle shape and in pre-christian germany they put them in the hearth. Irish people have made amulets for children from horseshoe nails for centuries (I have one) and brides in France went through a phase of rings made of bent horse shoe nails. A lot of it had to do with the belief that iron (and I’m sure other metals other places) kept you safe from the supernatural. And of course dipping the nails in spring water is necessary to make the magic work.

That is fasinating.

And interesting the associations of three from beyond Christianity, as Christianity picked up a lot of European folklore and added it to the canon, as it were.

I wonder why they associated iron as being a shield from the supernatural?

Does ‘spring water’ purchased in plastic bottles from stores count? Do I need to find an actual spring? What about creek water … thousands of creeks around here where I live.

[OverandOnward]

@Amberley

Lucky horseshoes only work if you find them btw, can’t be bought or gifted. It’s an Irish superstition. So get out there on the trails and start looking.

Wait what? I was finding them where the farrier tossed them when he reshod my horse. Can I count that?