The horseshoe: iron, the moon and the legend of St Dunstan

Hung above the doors of houses, stables and workshops, the horseshoe is one of the most recognisable lucky charms in Europe. Its symbolic fortune arises from three elements: the metal it is made of, its crescent shape and its link with the horse, an animal of great value to rural and military life. To these, medieval England added a legend that turned it into a weapon against the Devil himself.

The power of iron

In many European traditions iron was believed to keep spirits and supernatural creatures at bay. In the folklore of the British Isles and northern Europe it was said that fairies and otherworldly beings could not bear contact with this metal. An iron object placed near a cradle or on a threshold therefore acted as a barrier. The blacksmith, who mastered fire and metal, enjoyed an almost magical prestige in rural communities.

The horseshoe combined this protective virtue with a practical merit: it was a costly and useful object, and finding one in the road meant a small gain. It is no coincidence that many beliefs insist on the horseshoe found by chance, thought luckier than one that has been bought. The nail holes, often seven, added to the object's appeal, since seven is a number rich in meaning in biblical and medieval culture.

St Dunstan and the Devil

The best-known legend is English. Dunstan, a monk and later Archbishop of Canterbury in the tenth century, who died in 988, was according to tradition also skilled in metalwork. The story goes that the Devil came to him asking to have his hoof shod; the saint recognised him, nailed on the shoe so hard that he howled, and released him only after extracting a promise never to enter a house protected by a horseshoe.

The story is late and legendary, but it spread widely. Dunstan is venerated as patron of goldsmiths and blacksmiths, and his legend helped to Christianise a custom that was probably older. Over the centuries horseshoes were nailed to the doors of houses, stables and even some churches, and in the nineteenth century they were still a common sight in the English and American countryside.

Points up or down

A much-debated question concerns orientation. In most of the English-speaking world the horseshoe is hung with its points upwards, so that it holds luck like a cup. In other parts of Europe, Italy included, the opposite position is sometimes preferred, with the points down, so that good fortune pours over whoever passes beneath the threshold. Both customs are attested and neither is more “correct” than the other: they are local variants of the same belief.

The crescent shape has also suggested a link with the waxing moon, an ancient symbol of protection and growth found in Mediterranean and Near Eastern amulets long before the Christian era. It is a plausible interpretation but hard to prove, and it should be regarded as a symbolic reading rather than an established origin. More concrete is the fact that a shoe worn down by work carried with it the idea of a journey completed without harm.

Today the horseshoe appears on greeting cards, jewellery and shop signs, often very far from any stable. Yet it keeps the echo of a world in which the horse was wealth, iron was protection and the blacksmith was a craftsman respected by all. Every horseshoe hung above a door tells, in miniature, this story of work, fear and hope, which the legends of the saints have enriched with new meanings.