_The Three Horse-shoes_ are not uncommon, and the single shoe may be met with in many combinations, arising from the old belief in its lucky influences. Thus the _Horse and Horse-Shoe_ was the sign of William Warden at Dover, as appears from his token. The _Sun and Horse-Shoe_ is still a public-house sign in Great Tichfield Street, and the _Magpie and Horse-Shoe_ may be seen carved in Fetter Lane; the magpie is perched within the horse-shoe, a bunch of grapes being suspended from it. The _Horns and Horse-shoe_ is represented on the token of William Grainge, in Gutter Lane, 1666, a horse-shoe within a pair of antlers. The _Hoop and Horse-shoe_ on Tower Hill was formerly called the _Horse-shoe_. Miller Christy, in his book “The Trade Signs of Essex,” says that horse-shoe signs probably owe their origin partly to the fact that this symbol appears on the arms of the Farriers’ Company, and partly to the old practice of fastening a horse-shoe upon the stable-door or elsewhere as a witch-scarer. In the county of Essex the horse-shoe may be seen upon the signs of beer-houses at Great Parndon, Braintree, Waltham Abbey, and High Ongar. There was formerly more than one noted inn in London known as the Half-Moon, and a street of that name, leading from Piccadilly, is well known. The name and symbol of the _full_ moon, however, seldom appear on sign-boards. Butler asks in “Hudibras:”— Tell me, but what’s the nat’ral cause, Why on a sign no painter draws The full moon, but the half? The reason is doubtless because of the favorable auspices associated from time immemorial with the crescent moon. One need hardly accept as plausible the explanation sometimes offered, namely, that the half-moon tavern symbol is a silent invitation to eat and drink to one’s full capacity; a hint, as it were, to follow the crescent moon’s example and “get full.” XVIII. HORSE-SHOES ON CHURCH-DOORS The origin of the horse-shoe as a charm has been ascribed to its resemblance to the metallic aureole or _meniscus_ formerly placed over the heads of images of patron saints in churches, and which is also represented in ancient pictures of the Virgin. This aureole, or more properly _nimbus_, was probably of pagan origin, for in early times circles of stars frequently ornamented the heads of statues of the gods, as emblematic of divinity. In speaking of certain ancient relics found in Ireland, Mr. W. G. Wood-Martin (“Pagan Ireland,” p. 492) says:—