The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

VI HORSESHOES 219
chimney -hearth would bring good luck to the
house. ^^'^
In the tombs of the kings at Thebes (that of
Rameses IX. No. 6) the king is represented as
receiving the ankh, or symbol of life, from
different goddesses, each of whom, in several scenes,
holds him hand in hand. In one case, however,
Hathor is presenting him with a double phallus,
which is curiously, but evidently with intention,
made to take the form of a horseshoe! In Tunis,
Cairo, Constantinople, Spain, Italy, and Sicily, plenty
of horseshoes may be seen in the streets fixed to the
houses, as the writer can testify. At the Paris
Exhibition of 1889 was a reproduction of a street
in Old Cairo. Over several of the doors was hung
a crocodile, a powerful amulet ; on one house, how-
ever, was not only the crocodile, but on his snout,
and also on his tail, were perched horseshoes,
the crescent symbol of the pagan
Diana, used as an amulet by the Ma-
homedan iconoclast
The lamp shown in Fig. 85 has the
crescent handle almost in horseshoe
shape. The curious amulet, too. (Fig.
!
89), from the Etruscan Museum at p^ 89.
Bologna, can hardly represent anything
but a horseshoe, while the round knobs at the heels are
matched by those on the lamp ; the same knobs are
often seen upon crescents. There is a necklace in the
352 Brand, Pop. Ant. vol. iii. p. 18, ed. Bohn. In Cumberland this practice
is very common ; the writer has seen many upon various parts of the premises
at Duddon Hall.
mental temple in
One old one is nailed to the wall at the back of an orna-
the garden—a building which is quite empty. The only
explanation to be extracted from the natives is that the shoes are nailed up
for luck. If more close and intimate relations could be established, we have
no doubt of finding the way to other reasons.