Indian Antiquary Vol 25

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 82

76
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(MARCH, 1896
presented with keys at the wedding. In A. D. 600 Gregory the Great sent to Childebert, king of the Franks, a golden key to be worn round the king's neck to guard him from evil.s Its guardian power was the probable root-reason why the key was chosen to adorn the gods Mithrases and Janus, the goddesses Cybeless and Ceres, the Jewish high priest, and the Christian Pope. Its power of shutting and opening continues the key as & symbol of authority after the belief in its guardian virtue has passed. The same double power makes the key an emblem of learning and eloquence in Asiatic literature, and of silence among freemasons.08
Horse-shoe. --The piece of iron, the belief in whose guardian virtue is strongest and widest spread, is the horse-shoe. The horse-shoe, to the virtue of iron and of a lucky shape, adds the close association with a guardian part of a guardian animal. The lackiness of the horse-shoe form, as shewn in its popularity in Buddhist buildings and in rude stone monuments at Stonehenge and Avebury, probably is partly owing to its adoption among phallic shapes. That the hoof is in itself a scarer is shewn by the practice of barning hoof-parings to raise people out of swoons and by the belief in West Kent that ague is cured by drinking the dissolved inside of of a horse's hoof.91 In the Indian Muharram, or Musalman Carnival, one of the chief performers is the half-dazed man who runs carrying Lord Horse-shoe or Na'l-Salib, who, for several days before, has been worshipped with lights and incense. Aubrey, in 1680, notices the London practice of nailing horse-shoes to the threshold. In 1800, Scottish cows, suffering from the sadden cramp known as elf-shot, were cured by passing a horse-shoe thrice under the stomach and over the back. The belief is common to sailors in Scotland, in the west of England, in Roumania, in North Germany, and in America, that a horse-shoe, or even a nail driven into the deck, keeps off lightning. In 1820, English sailors insisted that a horse-shoe should be nailed to the mainmset to keep off the evil one. So also, in England, about the same time, if milk would not churn, country wenches dropped into the milk a heated horse-shoe to destroy the charm. In Ireland, a horse-shoe ought to be nailed over the stable door to keep out the good people, that is, the faeries; otherwise your horses will be faery-ridden. In Suffolk and Worcester, the practice remains of fastening a horse-shoe over a door to keep out a witcb, or to a bedstead to keep off evil spirits.. An ass's shoe used in England (1770) to have the same restraining power over witches as a horse-shoe.100 In Scotland, the shoes were twisted off an ass's feet before she foaled, perhaps from the fear that the scaring power of the shoes would prevent the spirit coming into the unborn foal.
This introduces a curious point with regard to iron, namely, that its power is so great that, besides evil spirits, it soares spirits and influences that are harmless or even guardian. The Gold Coast Negroes remove all metal from their bodies when they go to consult their guardian. No iron may touch the body of the king of Coren.' When iron was brought into the grove of the Bona Dea or Ops near Rome, the Fratres Arvales had to offer a sacrifice. So iron tools are unsafe apparently because they are apt to scare the guardian influence. Medea cat herbs with a brass hook, and the Druids severed the mistletoe with a golden knife. The Jews cut the balsam tree with a stone : the tree quaked as with fear if an iron knife was brought. The Jewish circumcision knife was of stone, and the Nazarenes, * Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 899.
Smith's Christian Antiquities, Article "Eucolpion." #6 King's Gnostics, p. 63. 56 Hislop's Two Babylons, p. 302. 57 Monoure Conway's Demonology arul Devil-Lore, Vol. I. p. 103. #Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, Vol. VII. p. 409; Greenland's Masonic Lectures, p. 74. » Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 573. # Inman's Early Faiths, Vol. L p. 114.
51 Notes and Queries, Vifth Series, VOL. I. p. 287. » Compare Nelso a's Glossary, "Nal-Saheb." $5 Aubrey's Remains of Gentilism, p. 27. Guthrie's Old Scottish Customs, p. 162,
» Bassett's Sea Legends, p. 462. Op. cit. p. 462. 1 Gentleman's Magazine Library," Popular Superstitions," p. 219. * Folk-Lore Record, Vol. IV. p. 102.
» Gentleman'. Magazine Library. "Popular Superstitions," pp. 125, 184; Folk-Lore Record, Vol. I. p. 24; The Denham Tracta, Vol. II. p. 62. 180 fooro's Oriental Pragmente, p. 456. Guthrie's Old Scottish Customs, p. 161. · Elworthy's The Evil Eye, p. 220.
Frazer's The Golden Bough, Vol. I. p. 172. • Smith's Grock and Roman Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 200; Pater's Marins the Epicurean, Vol. II, p. 199. . Compare Evelyn's Siwa, Vol. I. p. 10.
• Tacitus quoted in Whitstone's Josephus, p. 654.