761 – Seahorses
- Physical description:
- Set of 3 seahorses, used as protection charms; one cream-coloured, one light brown, one dark brown.
- Museum classification:
- Sea Witchcraft
- Size:
- 80 x 40 x 10, 70 x 25 x 10, 50 x 25 x 7 mm
- Information:
Sea horses are worn as protection from the Evil Eye. They can also be placed on the walls of a house to avert ill fortune from those within.
Scarborough Museum has a good luck charm consisting of four seahorses joined together, which was brought back to England from Chioggia on the Adriatic by a sailor in 1922; and also two very pretty glass seahorse charms - one originally from Yugoslavia, worn against the evil eye and collected in Scarborough in 1939, and one from Murano (c.1891), used as a house good luck charm (information supplied by Tabitha Cadbury - see her report 'The Clarke Collection of Charms and Amulets' in the museum library.)The use of dried seahorses as good luck charms in Lausanne, Switzerland, is mentioned in Georges Simenon's novel 'Maigret and the Lazy Burglar', published in 1961.
- Resource:
- Object
- Materials:
- Animal
Sea horses are worn as protection from the Evil Eye. They can also be placed on the walls of a house to avert ill fortune from those within.
Scarborough Museum has a good luck charm consisting of four seahorses joined together, which was brought back to England from Chioggia on the Adriatic by a sailor in 1922; and also two very pretty glass seahorse charms - one originally from Yugoslavia, worn against the evil eye and collected in Scarborough in 1939, and one from Murano (c.1891), used as a house good luck charm (information supplied by Tabitha Cadbury - see her report 'The Clarke Collection of Charms and Amulets' in the museum library.)
The use of dried seahorses as good luck charms in Lausanne, Switzerland, is mentioned in Georges Simenon's novel 'Maigret and the Lazy Burglar', published in 1961.