Horseshoes, Keys and Scissors

If something is coming round your house, a Waycross informant said, “yo’ jest git chew a ole rusty horseshoe an’ nail it up ovah yore front do'” and another over the back, and you will never be bothered again (Hyatt 1344 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1072).

Horseshoes, keys and scissors are iron and steel things from an ordinary house and yard. In Hyatt’s volumes they guard doors, beds and the dead, catch witches, keep out the law and open the way.

The horseshoe

The horseshoe over the door is the most common protection in the collection. Informants hung it against:

• Ghosts of the newly dead, after the body had been carried out, ends down (Hyatt 1340 · New York City · informant 6).
• Evil spirits, using a rare left-foot shoe (Hyatt 1342 · Savannah, Ga. · informant 1260).
• A returning spirit, the shoe wrapped in tinfoil, prongs down (Hyatt 1343 · Old Point Comfort, Va. · informant 33).
• Witches riding the horses and tangling their manes, nailed over the barn door, points down (Hyatt 461 · Tyree Church, Md. · informant 12).
• Witches riding you, with your own name written in the centre of the shoe (Hyatt 10434 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1031).

On the road at night it travelled with you. Spit on it and throw it over your shoulder, and the ghosts would leave you alone all the way home (Hyatt 1339 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 550).

Which way it points

Direction mattered. A grey horse’s shoe with the points up brought luck to the house (Hyatt 12189 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1365).

A Mobile woman laid one at the front gate and swept towards the house over it for nine mornings. With the heel to the house it kept a man in. Turned the other way, the way a horse walks off, it sent him away (Hyatt 12184 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 673).

Law, trade and work

In New Orleans a small bottle of black stone, Van Van and sweet oil was hidden behind the horseshoe to keep the police out (Hyatt 12185 · New Orleans, La. · informant 809). Another man used a brand-new shoe and tinfoil that had never been walked on: “The law will never come there.” (Hyatt 12186 · New Orleans, La. · informant 843).

Bootleggers hung one over the back door to bring in trade (Hyatt 12187 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1283). To hold a job, you found an old shoe with its nine nails and buried it under the east corner of your workplace (Hyatt 12206 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1025).

The shoe could also drive people out. Three horseshoes wrapped in tinfoil from the street and buried under a family’s steps made them move (Hyatt 12192 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1460). In Memphis, a nail drawn from a shoe and driven into the victim’s wall did the same (Hyatt 12202 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1537).

The nails had their own work. Nine were bound head-and-tail in flannel for luck (Hyatt 12204 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1174), or set in sulphur and lard on the door ledge to call a man home by name (Hyatt 12203 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 667). Bent into a ring, a horseshoe nail was worn for luck (Hyatt 1345 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1378).

Keys

Herb men sold a Peter’s Protection Key, dressed seven mornings with Lucky Holy Oil and worn on the body. “It made like a key but it don’t fit no lock on a door” (Hyatt 2260 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 563). In New Orleans, keys went to St. Peter, or over the door with a green light for money (Hyatt 3032 · New Orleans, La. · informant 814).

The keyhole was a weak point. Witches were said to slip out of their skins and through it to ride sleepers (Hyatt 445 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1097; Hyatt 455 · Norfolk, Va. · informant 466). It worked the other way too: a woman called her absent man nine times through the keyhole and had a letter with ten dollars in two days (Hyatt 2041 · Norfolk, Va. · informant 486).

Scissors

Scissors under the pillow with an open Bible kept the hag off (Hyatt 479 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 559). Opened by a candle, they drove evil spirits from a haunted place (Hyatt 2933 · New Orleans, La. · informant 1558). One man struck the witch riding him with a pair and cut off the end of her finger (Hyatt 476 · Fredericksburg, Va. · informant 35).

Bound with black thread in nine knots and hung by the door, they kept an enemy out: “Dat enemy whut yo’ don’t want in yore home, she [he] won’t come in dere.” (Hyatt 2277 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1556).

Laid under a woman in labour they cut afterpains (Hyatt 1495 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1542). A new pair set on a murdered man’s body brought the murderer back (Hyatt 7421 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 965).

In their own words

“you kin have yore horseshoe and spit on it and throw it over your shoulder and the ghostes won’t harm you”

(Hyatt 1339 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 550)

“Dat’s fo’ sharp luck , yo’ know.”

(Hyatt 2278 · New Orleans, La. · informant 1558)

“Nobody kin have your job.”

(Hyatt 12206 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1025)

How it’s worked today

The horseshoe over the door is still one of the most common protections in Southern homes, with workers divided on points up to hold luck or points down to pour it over the doorway. Horseshoe nail rings are still made and worn.

Open scissors under the mattress or pillow remain a standard guard against the hag and against spirit attack. Skeleton keys are dressed and carried for road-opening work, and St. Peter is still given keys in exchange for open doors.

Learn the work

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Source: Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo – Conjuration – Witchcraft – Rootwork, 5 vols., 1970-1978. Numbers refer to Hyatt’s own item numbers; the town and informant number follow. Written by Hoodoo Witch in our own words, with short quotations from Hyatt’s informants for reference.