Loch Ness · VERIFIED OR VIBES? · Lucky charms
By Camille G., founder of Loch Ness · Published September 27, 2026 · Last updated September 27, 2026
This page completes our answer to horseshoe up or down. Almost every article on lucky horseshoes tells the same story, dated to the 10th century. We checked how old that version really is.
The story
Dunstan, a blacksmith who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 959, is asked to reshoe the Devil’s horse and nails the shoe to the Devil’s own hoof instead. He only removes it once the Devil promises never to enter a place with a horseshoe over the door (Wikipedia).
The claim: “This is a 10th-century legend”
Dunstan is a real 10th-century figure, and the Middle Ages told many stories of him outwitting the Devil; in a related one, he grabs the Devil’s nose with red-hot tongs (Drawing Covert). But the horseshoe version that circulates today closely matches a Victorian narrative poem: Edward G. Flight’s The Horse Shoe: The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil, first published in 1852, with a third edition in 1871 (Yale Center for British Art). A medievalist notes that Flight introduced significant innovations into the medieval legend, and carefully set his “true” account apart from his medieval sources (Studies in Medievalism, Cambridge). The poem is free to read online (Project Gutenberg).
Verdict: 🟡 Partial — Dunstan and his Devil legends are medieval; the horseshoe-over-the-door version most sites quote was shaped, at least in part, by a Victorian poem.
Still open
We haven’t yet found a medieval text that contains the horseshoe promise itself. If you know one, send it to us and we’ll update this verdict.
Sources
- Wikipedia — Iron in folklore
- Drawing Covert — A saint, the Devil, and why horseshoes are lucky
- Yale Center for British Art — Flight, The true legend of St. Dunstan (1871)
- Studies in Medievalism (Cambridge) — The smith, the Devil, and Jim Crow
- Project Gutenberg — The Horse Shoe, by Edward G. Flight
Update log
September 27, 2026 — First publication.
About the author — Camille G., founder of Loch Ness
Full-stack developer and self-taught jewelry maker since 2013, Camille designs and codes every interactive experience on Loch Ness Lab — from the healing crystal bracelet configurator to the free tools at lochness-paris.com/apps, including the research behind the creativity test’s scoring algorithm.