1479 – Key with hagstone

Physical description:

Key with hagstone attached.

Museum classification:

Protection

Information:

A visitor to the museum has provided us with some more information about the use of keys as protection charms. The number of keys used may depend on the type of home to be protected. A set of three iron keys and a hagstone have been passed down through her family for generations as a protection charm for a farm. Another family member, who lives in a town, has seven keys and a hagstone; while a third family member has nine keys and a hagstone. For protection, the keys have to be old iron ones. Modern keys, however, can be used as good luck charms. It is also often the custom in her family to give a small gold key charm as a gift to a baby - to unlock good luck for the future.
Scarborough Museum has two charms involving hagstones and keys - a hagstone and two old keys, that were hung on a stable door to keep away witches, collected from Suffolk in 1913, and a key and a "holey stone" from Devon, 1913, which were hung in a cottage as a charm against witchcraft (information provided by Tabitha Cadbury - see her report 'The Clarke Collection of Charms and Amulets' in the museum library).
A visitor to the museum from Germany has told us that her parents, who used to live in an old farmhouse in Bavaria, had a hagstone ring hanging up in the house and also a hagstone attached to their house keys.

Resource:

Object

Materials:

Metal, stone

Copyright ownership:

Treetrunk Ltd.

A visitor to the museum has provided us with some more information about the use of keys as protection charms. The number of keys used may depend on the type of home to be protected. A set of three iron keys and a hagstone have been passed down through her family for generations as a protection charm for a farm. Another family member, who lives in a town, has seven keys and a hagstone; while a third family member has nine keys and a hagstone. For protection, the keys have to be old iron ones. Modern keys, however, can be used as good luck charms. It is also often the custom in her family to give a small gold key charm as a gift to a baby - to unlock good luck for the future.
Scarborough Museum has two charms involving hagstones and keys - a hagstone and two old keys, that were hung on a stable door to keep away witches, collected from Suffolk in 1913, and a key and a "holey stone" from Devon, 1913, which were hung in a cottage as a charm against witchcraft (information provided by Tabitha Cadbury - see her report 'The Clarke Collection of Charms and Amulets' in the museum library).
A visitor to the museum from Germany has told us that her parents, who used to live in an old farmhouse in Bavaria, had a hagstone ring hanging up in the house and also a hagstone attached to their house keys.