DIE-HARD SUPERSTITIONS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXIV, Issue 17654, 2 September 1919, Page 8

DIE-HARD SUPERSTITIONS.

WHY WE HANG UP HORSE-SHOES

Over the door of almost any old farmhouse or cottage you will find a horse shoe nailed up. If you ask the owner why he has put it there, lie will say, "For luck." Asjs him where the luck comes in and ten to one he cannot tell you. The origin of the superstition is interesting. From earnest times the moon, the n&w moon especially, has been looked upon as a. lucky symbol, and the moon goddess was represented as wearing horns. In some old pictxires Moses is shown as wearing horns when he descended from Mount Sinai. COCK CROWS—EVIL GOES. The horse-shoe nailed over our doors is nothing but the same, crescent symbol, and "should, of course, always be fixed with the points upwards. The commonest ornament on harness is the Greek cross enclosed in a circle. This is the ancient symbol of the sun, ancl was originally used as a protection •against witchcraft. Upon old buildings the weather vane is so often seen in the form of a cock that we' hare come to speak of a -wind vane as ,i "weather cock." In th£ Middle. Ages the cock was considered the special enemy of the evil one. The idea was that all the evil influences of the night fied away at cock crow. SOLDIERS' TALISMAN. The Boy Scouts' badge is the so-called swastika, -which is probably the oldest symbol of the sun. It is believed that the .swastika represents the plan of King Solomon's temvle, built in such a way | that no wind or tempest could have any i effect upon it. [ The same symbol is also employed in Vree masonry. A charm which was carried by many men during the war is the scarab or sacred beetle of the Egyptians. It has a great reputation as a luck bringer, but few who own a scarab could tell you the origin of the belief. Tt is this. The scarab beetle makes pellets of clay, in which 't lays its esras and leaves them to hatch. The little Klohes were considered by the Egyntians to be emblems of the sun and ali=o of immortality. And the tradition has never died out.