Protective and luck symbols

Charms and signs people have used to ward off harm and bring luck, and where each belief comes from.

Evil eye (nazar)A charm against the evil eye, the harm that an envious or admiring look is believed to do. Its best-known form is the Turkish nazar boncuğu, a blue glass bead with an eye in rings at its centre, hung on children, animals and homes.
HorseshoeAn old horseshoe nailed over a door or on a stable, kept for luck and, in English, Scottish and wider European folklore, against witches, fairies and the devil. Which way up it should hang is disputed: points up so the luck cannot spill out, or points down so the luck pours onto the house or the devil cannot nest in it.
Lucky cat (maneki-neko)A Japanese figure of a seated cat with one paw raised to beckon, kept in shops and homes to invite good fortune. Japanese collectors say a raised right paw beckons money and a raised left paw beckons people and customers.
DreamcatcherA small hoop netted like a spider’s web, hung over a baby’s cradle or a bed. In Ojibwe tradition it catches harm and bad dreams and lets good dreams through, and Ojibwe families still make it and teach its meaning.
Italian horn (cornicello)A small horn-shaped charm, usually red and slightly twisted, from Naples. Neapolitans carry it, wear it or hang it at home against the malocchio, the evil eye, and for good luck.
Four-leaf cloverA clover leaf with four leaflets instead of the usual three, kept for luck in Irish, British and wider European folklore. It is an uncommon form of the plant, and a different thing from the shamrock, which has three leaves.

About protective and luck symbols

These are charms people have used to turn away harm and to invite luck, each from a named tradition: charms against the evil eye of an envious look, in Turkish, Greek and Jewish tradition, a Japanese figure of a beckoning cat, an Ojibwe hoop for a child’s cradle, a Neapolitan horn, a clover leaf of Irish folklore and the horseshoe over the door. Each page gives the belief in the words of the people who hold it, and says where its origin is disputed or unknown.

The evil eye

The evil eye is the harm an envious or admiring look is believed to do, and the charms are the protection against it. Turkish uses nazar etmek, “to cast the eye”, for looking with envy at something admired and so harming it, the TDV encyclopedia of Islam explains, and words of admiration and praise count as nazar too. The encyclopedia records necklaces of blue beads and rings hung on animals and children. The Jewish Virtual Library describes the same belief in Jewish tradition as ayin ha-ra, and lists the counter-charms: a mirror, a colour such as red or blue, and an outstretched hand. In Greece, USA Today reported in 2017, the charm is called the mati, “eye”. Frederick Elworthy wrote in 1895 that the origin of the belief “is lost in the obscurity of prehistoric ages”.

Four charms for luck

The lucky cat, or maneki-neko, is a Japanese figure of a seated cat with one paw raised to beckon. The Japan Maneki Neko Club says that a raised right paw beckons money and a raised left paw beckons people and customers, and the Maneki Neko Museum in Seto says the figure was born in Edo at the end of the Edo period. The dreamcatcher is Ojibwe. Its name, asabikeshiinh, is also the Ojibwe word for a spider, and in the teaching Georgian College gives, the web lets good dreams through its centre and holds bad dreams in its threads until they disappear at first light. Ojibwe families make them for their own children, as Martha Jourdain, a cultural assistant with the Fond du Lac tribe, did with ceremonial rites taught by her ancestors, and some object to the mass-produced kind: “The dream catcher, to us, is a sacred item,” Gerald White of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe told the Associated Press in 2001. The Italian horn, the red cornetto of Naples, is kept for good luck and against the malocchio, the evil eye; L’Italo-Americano reports the rule that it must be a present, because buying one for yourself doesn’t work. The four-leaf clover is lucky in Irish folklore, above all with money, as schoolchildren recorded for the Schools’ Collection of 1937–39. It is a different thing from the shamrock, which University of Missouri Extension describes as a clover with three leaflets.

The horseshoe

The horseshoe is nailed over doors and on farm buildings, for luck and against witches and fairies. Robert Means Lawrence, collecting the beliefs in The Magic of the Horse-shoe (1898), found that the Lancashire farmer nailed horseshoes to his buildings against fairies who rode the horses by night, and concluded that the superstition “cannot be referred to any one particular starting-point”. Which way up it should hang is disputed. In Derbyshire, Lawrence records, it was set prongs upward, explained as “so placed, the luck cannot spill out”; in Rutland all horseshoes hang with their tips at the bottom, Discover Rutland says, so that the devil cannot make a nest in the shoe or so that the luck falls on those who walk beneath it.

Sources

Nazar (TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi), Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı
Evil Eye, Encyclopaedia Judaica, via the Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise)
Evil eye in Greece: Popularity grows for New Age spirituality, Jenny Lower, 21 September 2017, USA Today, article
The Evil Eye (Elworthy, 1895), Frederick Thomas Elworthy, 1895, John Murray
招き猫Q&A, Japan Maneki Neko Club website, read September 2026, 日本招猫倶楽部 (Japan Maneki Neko Club), questions and answers
日本生まれのラッキーゴッド、招き猫, museum website, read September 2026, 招き猫ミュージアム (Maneki Neko Museum, Seto), page “招き猫について”
asabikeshiinh (na), Nora Livesay (editor) and John D. Nichols (founder), The Ojibwe People's Dictionary, University of Minnesota, entry “asabikeshiinh”
Origins of the dream catcher, 3 December 2018, Georgian College (Barrie, Ontario), blog post
Dream-catcher marketers catch flak, Associated Press, 24 December 2001, Deseret News, article
Naples, luck and the iconic cornetto, Giulia Franceschini, 19 October 2020, L'Italo-Americano, article (English text)
The Four-Leaved Shamrock, Rinneen, Co. Clare (The Schools' Collection, 1937–39), The Schools' Collection, Volume 0621, page 228, An Rinnín, Leacht Uí Chonchobhair school (Rinneen, Co. Clare); National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin, dúchas.ie (National Folklore Collection, UCD), transcript
St. Patrick's Day: Time to rock your shamrock knowledge, Linda Geist, 27 February 2025, University of Missouri Extension, news release (Internet Archive copy of 20 April 2026; the site refuses the fetcher)
The Magic of the Horse-shoe, with other folk-lore notes, Robert Means Lawrence, 1898, Houghton, Mifflin and Company (Project Gutenberg), Chapters I, II, IX, XIV, XV and XX
Rutland's Horseshoe History, Discover Rutland

Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 1, 2026. How we research