Superstition surrounding shoes hidden in walls…

Found some quite interesting information.

One theory is that old shoes hidden in the house walls is a reflection of an ancient superstition that hiding shoes in a house as it was being built, would ward off evil. I was told this may have came from another ancient superstition in which people would ‘build’ dead bodies into the foundation of their houses as they were building it to keep the building upright. Pretty much human sacrifice. Later shoes were used instead of bodies. Its thought that shoes were a replacement because when they are finished with they are well worn and keep the shape of the persons foot and ankle, therefore contained their spirit.

A man at my work told me that the shoes could also have belonged to a child who died. Years ago the parents of a child who died young would often keep the childs shoes in this way. I think this is more likely to be the case with these shoes as in the other instance there was normally either one shoe or one shoe from each member of the family. Apparently, when it was a dead persons shoes, they were nearly always hidden near the ‘weak’ points of houses (doors, windows, chimneys) so the inhabitants would be protected from evil by the shoe owner’s spirit

It is also speculated that it was mostly males that would hide the shoes, it would be kept a secret so that nothing would ruin its effectivness.

Apparently there have been hundereds of shoes found in very old houses when doing renovations, mostly in Europe and eastern parts of the states, but no one has photographed them when in place before removing them.

I’d like to know exactly where they were found.

Nat

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