Mary Hockenbery (reddirtrose)
window
It wasn’t meant to be a good luck charm…no, not at all, at all. It was the faeries, you see. Repelled by iron, the faerie folk. Cold iron, though I’ve no idea why the temperature should make a difference. There’s no understanding the ways of the faeries. But you put a bit of cold iron above the door or window and it keeps them out, them and their wickedness and cruel japes. And in the early days, the most convenient source of cold iron was old horseshoes.
Then came the Romans, uninvited and unwelcome, and they saw the old horseshoes above the doors and windows and what do they know about faeries, the heathen bastards? They think it’s the horseshoe that’s important, the idjits, not the iron. Since there were more Romans on the face of the good earth than there are ticks on a deer’s arse, the notion soon spread throughout the civilized world that a horseshoe meant good luck.
Some say the horseshoe should be pointed up to keep the good luck inside, and some say it should be pointed down so the good luck spills out on you like sugar from a spoon. It’s all nonsense. It’s a horseshoe, for the love of Jaysus…a chunk of metal nailed to the bottom of the hoof of a large and semi-intelligent mammal. Where’s the luck in that, I’m asking you? Superstitious nonsense.
It’s the iron, the iron that matters. That’s what keeps you safe. The iron.
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