Also called lucky horseshoe, St Dunstan's horseshoe
A used iron horseshoe nailed above a doorway to bring luck into the house and keep the Devil, witches and fairies out.
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Take care: Fix the shoe firmly so it cannot fall on anyone; old shoes can have sharp nail holes and rust, so wear gloves while cleaning them.
Dunstan, a skilled metalworker who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 959, is said to have been asked by the Devil to shoe his hoof. He nailed the shoe on so painfully that the Devil promised never to enter a house with a horseshoe over the door. The legend became the best-known explanation for the custom.
Iron in any form was believed to repel fairies. A knife, scissors, nails or a reaping hook were laid under the threshold or in a baby's cradle to stop the child being taken and a changeling left in its place. The horseshoe is the most visible survivor of this broader trust in iron.
On Dartmoor farms shoes were nailed not only on the house but on barns, dairies, pigsties and chicken houses, each building getting its own guard. Local tradition also kept the luck tied to shoes that had actually been cast by a horse.
The horseshoe gathers several old beliefs into one object. It is iron, which across northern Europe was believed to drive off fairies and witches. It is shaped like a crescent moon, and it was made by the smith, a figure long credited with special powers. Shoes were fixed to churches as well as homes, and Lord Nelson is often said to have had one nailed to the mast of his flagship Victory, though that tale is hard to prove.
The legend of St Dunstan, the tenth-century archbishop and metalworker, gave the custom a Christian story. By the nineteenth century folklorists recorded horseshoes on doors, stables and boats throughout Britain and Ireland, and emigrants carried the habit to North America and Australia. Arguments over which way up to hang it are old and local, and no single rule wins. Many people still follow the old rule that the shoe must have been worn by a horse and, ideally, found or given rather than bought.
Two rowan twigs bound into an equal-armed cross with red thread and placed over doors, byres and cradles to keep witches and fairies out.
A sealed bottle of pins, nails and personal traces hidden in a house to trap or turn back harmful magic aimed at the people living there.
A worn shoe hidden in a chimney, wall or roof during building work, to guard the household and carry the luck and shape of its owner into the house.
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