This is God's wondrous world. O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong. God is the ruler yet.
This is God's wondrous world: why should my heart be sad?
Let voices sing, O let the heavens ring!
God reigns, let earth be glad.
I'm kind of a Jeopardy! addict, even though I find Alex Trebek, Canadian ex-pat, rather supercilious at times -- dude, you have all the answers! Alex seems to be nicest to kids, and during this year's Teen Tournament he's been kind and complimentary every day.
One of the answers, which is really a question reversed, was about St. Dunstan, the blacksmith, and what he fashioned and hung above a door to ward off the devil. None of them got it, but I guessed it was a horseshoe. So that's where the Lucky Horseshoe originated! I got it right and none of the contestants did. I'd claim to be smarter than a 13-17 year-old but these young uns are really bright.
Of course I had to do a search on this 12th century holy man. One legend has Dunstan grabbing the Devil's nose with his blacksmith's tongs, which sounds painful, even for Satan. Another has the Devil appearing to Dunstan and saying that he's going to knock down all the houses in the village. He bargains with the Devil and gets him to agree to leave standing any house with a horseshoe on the outside. At that time, the custom of nailing horseshoes to doors for luck wasn't well known so the Devil agreed but St. Dunstan managed to nail a horseshoe to all the houses in the village before the Devil could get to them so the village was saved.
We don't talk much about good and evil much anymore, but I figure they both exist. And it does seem that there is a tug of war between the two and evil often seems to have the upper hand. The Devil?...apparently he's in the details.
Many of these fanciful legends of the past are meant to assure those who might have felt that the wrong was stronger than the right, God will prevail.
I'm still thinking about those hot tongs...
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