Good Luck Tokens and Charms
It is difficult to differentiate between items supposed to avert evil and items intended to attract good fortune.
Cast-off horseshoes are often nailed up over, or close by, doorways, normally with the ends pointing upwards; it is said to collect good luck, or to stop the luck from falling out (see Oakham's horseshoes). Model horseshoes (of card or plastic) are given as good-luck tokens, particularly at weddings, and small paper horseshoes feature in confetti.
White heather is often sold by Irish travelling people and Roma to "bring good luck". (Frequently this turns out to be not heather but white sea-lavender, a species of Limonium.)
In Ireland, St Brigid's crosses woven from rush were kept indoors (in houses and animal houses) to keep away illness for the year.
In Native American culture a dreamcatcher is used as a charm to protect sleeping children from nightmares.
Read more about this topic: Apotropaic Magic
Famous quotes containing the words luck, tokens and/or charms:
“Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!”
—Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936)
“It is the part of men to fear and tremble
When the most mighty gods by tokens send
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Ladies, like variegated tulips, show,
‘Tis to their changes that their charms we owe;”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)