Lucky and unlucky finds

Melton’s Astrologaster recorded the belief that anyone who found a four-leaved grass in the fields would soon after find some good thing, and that it was bad for a man or woman to lose a hose garter. Finding money was thought unlucky, and Greene said found money must not be kept but spent. Others held that finding a piece of iron foretold good luck and a piece of silver bad, and Boyle noted the common tradition that it was lucky to find a horseshoe. Anyone who saw another pick something up could cry halves and claim half its value, the custom on which the ring dropping trick was built.