The horse-shoe arch was a common emblem on pagan monuments, and is
frequently seen in Caledonian sculptured hieroglyphics, where it is
believed to have had a special significance as a protective symbol.
Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, in “The Early Races of Scotland,”
remarks that the horse-shoe arch was probably emblematic of the serpent
as a protecting and beneficent power, because this arch closely resembles
a peculiar mark or attribute of the so-called _Nagendra_, the hooded
serpent-king, a chief deity in the mythical lore of Ceylon. It would
appear quite unnecessary to refer to the Cingalese mythology in this
connection, inasmuch as the close resemblance between the shape of the
horse-shoe and the arched body of a snake has already been commented on.
As illustrative of the somewhat unique theory which claims the ancient
horse-shoe arch, itself a talismanic symbol, as the original source of
all the superstitions associated with the modern iron horse-shoe, it may
be appropriate to quote a few lines from the authority above mentioned:—
Whatever this figure (the horse-shoe arch) may have represented
to our heathen ancestors, it seems very likely that from it
the horse-shoe derived its supposed power of promoting the
fortune of its possessor and protecting him against threatened
calamities, whether designed by men or demons. Superstition
clung to the symbol that was hallowed by antiquity, and even
impressed this emblem of paganism on the Christianity by which
it was superseded.
The historian Diodorus Siculus said that the Chaldeans imagined the earth
as having the shape of a round boat turned upside down. The boats still
used on the rivers Tigris and Euphrates resemble in form a beehive with a
considerable bulge in the middle. Gerald Massey (“The Natural Genesis,”
vol. ii. p. 63) says that this conception of the earth’s figure
corresponds to the Egyptian _Put-sign_ with its hollow
underneath. Various forms of this formation of the world are
extant. The horse-shoe is one. _Hence its value as a symbol of
superstition._ The head-dress of the Egyptian goddess Hathor
has the shape of a horse-shoe. The letter omega (Ω) is another
form of the same sign.
The Rev. C. Vernon Harcourt, in his “Doctrine of the Deluge” (vol. i.
p. 141), suggests that the moon was anciently regarded as particularly
sacred when in the first quarter, because at that period it resembled
most closely the ark of Noah, which was crescent-shaped.
Again, the horse-shoe form is believed to be a survival of an ancient
religious symbol often seen in Assyrian and Egyptian sculptures,
signifying the mystical door of life.
The _D_ of the Italic alphabets placed ⌓ reveals its early
picture origin, while the Greek delta (Δ) represents a tent
door. The Egyptian hieroglyphic for ten was 𓎆. It is plain,
therefore, that the horse-shoe is the mystical door reduced to
its simplest possible form, and as a fetish for bringing good
luck, or as a talisman to avert the evil eye, it would have no
meaning except with the points downward.[139]
From a scientific standpoint, therefore, the horse-shoe, when used as a
protective symbol, should be placed with its convex arch uppermost; but
as a luck token, the reverse position is the proper one, else, according
to a popular notion, the luck may be spilled out.
In northern Germany and Bavaria figures of horse-shoes are sometimes
cut on boundary stones, as for example, on a stone which separates the
hamlets Ellerbek and Wellingdorf, suburbs of Kiel; and, again, on one
between the estates of Depenau and Bockhorn, in middle Holstein. In these
cases the idea involved is probably that of the beneficent horse-shoe
arch, impartially guarding the interests of both villages or estates.