Skepticblog

Magritte's "Le Modele Rouge" 1935

Have you found an old shoe in your chimney lately? If you have, there are traditions that dictate your home may be protected or maybe even haunted by the spirit of someone who once lived there. Shoes have a fascinating history as far as witchcraft, superstition and folk history goes. At least that’s what many serious students of the occult believe in Britain and in places here in the US.

Ominous Footwear

According to the Apotropaios site, in times of olde, shoes were not a cheap item and may have been one of the most expensive items a family could afford to buy. By the time the shoe was finally discarded, it provided a unique record of the wearers individual foot and like nail parings or a lock of hair in other witchcraft proceedings, it is a personal channel to that person’s life. Apparently, hiding or concealing shoes would act as a sort of decoy that would “trap” any unwelcome spirits and save the home owner from any disastrous consequences. Shoes found near the hearth of a home allegedly suggests some kind of protective function. So if you are at an old house in England and whilst standing near a warming fire suddenly smell feet or old shoe leather, thanks to me and my never ending quest for truth, you now know why.

June Swann pioneered research into the possible magical qualities of shoes with an article in 1969 for the Journal of Northampton Museum and Art Gallery (click here to see a 1996 version of this article) – this museum holds a very large collection of concealed shoes. In addition, reading  “Archaeological Leather Group Newsletter,” issue 7, Feb 1998. by Cameron, Pitt, Swann and Volken, “Hidden Shoes and Concealed Beliefs,” will bring further enlightenment on this practice.

“But one could rationalize this tradition, as the shoes of his time were so narrow and pointed (some were actually called devil’s horns) that it would be easy to believe the devil was pinching you, a suggestion women today will understand. But it does reinforce the idea that evil can be lured into a boot.”

Swann’s studies are so detailed and obsessive, they sometimes verge on the kinky. Special attributes listed for how the shoe laces are tied or untied, number of holes, tears or markings and other singularities are mulled over with exhaustive veneration. Some shoes are found with flowers, eggs or even dead animals stuffed inside them.

And as far as hauntings; Swann tells us that shoes are part of a grand tradition:

“Some readers may be familiar with the story of Papillon Hall, Leicestershire. David Papillon (1691-1762) is reputed to have had a Spanish mistress who was not allowed to leave the house, and who died mysteriously just before he married in 1717 (a woman’s skeleton was found walled up in an attic during the Lutyensalterations in 1903). The legend is that she left a curse of disaster if the shoes, in which she wished to walk, left the house. Accordingly, each purchaser was handed the shoe (of green and silver silk brocade, withredvelvet clogs, silver embroidered) with the title deeds. The house was haunted in 1866 when this was omitted, and again when they were sent to a Paris exhibition, possibly 1878. They were then locked behind a grille in the wall, high above the mantelpiece, until removed for the Lutyens work, when there was trouble again. They were then returned and the key thrown away. The house was occupied by American troops during the Second World War, and the shoes twice stolen. Only one shoe and a clog remained in 1945. The other shoe was found under the floorboards when the house was demolished in 1950, though the second clog is still missing. Obviously someone had hidden the shoe where it could not be stolen again. The shoes and clog are in Leicester Museum, and could very well date from the 1710-1715 period of the Spanish mistress.”

And then there’s this heart-rending account:

“A letter from a Hampshire woman was quite moving. She had innocently sent her finds to London for identification. While they were away, the house which had hitherto seemed so benign, had strange noises from the attic room where they were found. She even went to let the cat out, only to find nothing there. When there was a sensation of the floor shaking, her son refused to sleep there. She had heard that shoes were put in the chimney to keep out evil, which came in at the highest point. An Abercarnfinderreported that while the boots were out of the house for exhibition, they had nothing but bad luck, the death of pets, flooding and the shed fell down. They now wished to leave the boots strictly alone, no publicity, no photography.”

Who can argue with all that? I love a good ghost story and after reading up on all this, anyone booking a seance with me as the medium can now expect to possibly find an old boot mysteriously apporting itself onto the seance table. Clearly, many people have issues with shoes. Take a look at Imelda Marcos’ shoe collection or a walk down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Check out Michael Jordan’s $300.00 and up sneakers. Khruschev is remembered in this country for pounding his shoe. Bush had one thrown at him. Was it O.J’s fateful pair of shoes that brought him good luck – if only for awhile? Regardless of the owner, it was Bruno Magli size 12 suede lace-ups that left bloody prints at the scene of the double murder. Am I going off on a tangent here? I don’t think so.

There’s no harm in an old shoe. Or is there?

In our own confused country, we tie shoes to the back of newlywed’s cars to insure fertility, bronze baby’s first shoes and have another decidedly obscure shoe fetish that stands alone as a curious social statement:

Visit any large metropolitan area and look to the sky. You will see not-so-hidden shoes signaling a mysterious and darkly subversive symbol that is suffused with several meanings – depending on who you ask. 

U.F.O's?

“Shoe tossing” may or may not be connected to the English tradition, but what my seem a whimsical school game has become a social phenomena across the globe and observed with some trepidation in  Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Bolivia, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, United States and Venezuela.

Shoe flinging or “shoefiti” is the practice of throwing shoes whose shoelaces have been tied together so that they hang from overhead wires such as power lines or telephone cables. No one is sure  what this signifies and the jury is still out on the correct meaning of this spontaneous mass culture manifestation. Conjecture runs from signaling a crack house, heroin use, marking gang turf, the death of a gang member and other such sinister omens.  In Scotland, it has been said that when a young man has lost his virginity he tosses his shoes over telephone wires to announce this to his peers. It could be just kids throwing away their old shoes, couldn’t it? That makes more sense to me. Whatever the true meaning of all this fancy footwork, will you ever casually toss away your old shoes again without thinking twice after reading this momentous blog?

“The most recent recorded are 1983, the York wellington; and 1989: when a boy heard that the shoe sent for identification was concealed to keep witches away, he was so frightened that they put one of his red plastic wellingtons in the same place. Be very careful what you tell children. In 1991 an estate-worker’s shoe and a time capsule were added when a man’s ‘old court shoe’ was replaced where it was found behind panelling in Knebworth House [14]. The decline in figures for this (20th) century reflects less alterations to more recent buildings, and modern methods of demolition of the high-rises.”

Magritte Revisitado

“Never criticize a person until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. That way, he’s a mile away and you have his shoes.”