Throwing Old Shoes After a Bride

1878

The slipper or shoe is popularly supposed to be thrown for good luck, and in some parts of Europe the custom is to throw it after sailors about to go on a voyage, and after all who enter on perilous enterprises, such as marriage.

A writer in Notes and Queries traces it back to the Hebrews, where it had a different meaning, symbolizing a transfer of authority or dominion. References to this custom may be found in Psalm ix, Psalm cix, and in Deut. xxv. He supposes that the receiving of a shoe was an evidence and symbol of asserting or accepting dominion or ownership; the giving back a shoe the symbol of rejecting, or resigning it. He thinks that originally the throwing of the shoe after the bride was a symbol that the father or guardian renounced his authority over her, and the receipt of the shoe by the bridegroom, even if accidental, was an omen that that authority was transferred to him. There is no doubt that such was sometimes the meaning of the transfer of a shoe.

It is related by a Danish poet that a Norwegian king in the eleventh to twelfth century, having conquered a portion of Ireland and Scotland, sent to Ireland his dirty shoes and commanded the king, who lived there, "to wear them with honor on Christmas day in his royal state, and to own that he had his power and kingdom from the Lord of Norway and the Isles." If such was the original meaning of shoe-throwing, it has now lost its significance. Instead of one shoe, a dozen or more are thrown, and in some countries wheat, rice, etc., accompany or take the place of old shoes. The supposed meaning to-day is that the shoe thrown after a newly-married couple will give them good luck.