Placed on the outside of the door, or above the entrance of a dwelling, or upon the threshold, the horse-shoe is easily first among the inveterate foes of witches and devils generally. Laugh if you will, who imps nor devils fear, Whom death appals not, phantoms come not near; Along whose nerves no quick vibrations dart, As teeming twilight’s shadowy offspring start; Not yours to feel the joy with which I flew To snatch the rusty, worn, but lucky shoe. Oft have I heard them chattering at my door, The hags whose dances beat the shrinking moor; Oft have I sprung from nightmare-haunted rest, And gasped an _oro_ from my panting breast, As forms that vanished ere the half-shut eye With fright could open, from their revels fly. Henceforth, good horse-shoe, vain shall be their ride: Their spells are baffled and their rage defied.[186] Edward Moor, in his “Oriental Fragments” (p. 455, London, 1834), relates having once, in company with a gang of urchins, nailed a donkey-shoe under the threshold of a poor woman in Suffolk who was suspected of sorcery. He and his youthful companions endeavored thus to keep her all night within doors, as witches cannot cross iron. An English writer[187] tells of having heard an animated discussion in the parlor of a London beer-shop as to whether it were preferable to nail a horse-shoe _behind the door_ or upon _the first doorstep_; and instances of extraordinary good luck were mentioned as the direct result of the potency of the amulet in each position. But there are weighty reasons for the selection of the front door, or the parts immediately connected with it, as the proper place for the display of horse-shoes as household guardians.