272 



HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



That e'er shall dint a sable wound 

 On fair Glamorgan's velvet ground ! 



Old Chepstow's brides may curse the toil. 

 That arm'd stout Clare for Cambrian broil ; 

 Their orphans long the art may rue. 

 For Neville's war-horse forged the shoe. 

 No more the stamp of armed steed 

 Shall dint Glamorgan's velvet mead ; 

 Nor trace be there, in early spring, 

 Save of the Fairies' emerald ring.' 



After the evidence we have adduced, there is no 

 reason to suppose that Glamorgan's veh^et mead was not 

 as likely to be dinted by the shoe-print of the Welsh 

 horses after, as doubtless it had been long centuries 

 before, this -sanguinary skirmish ; or that Neville's horse's 

 hoofs were any better prepared for marching and fighting 

 than that of the British chief who defeated him. 



Besides all this, there are certain traditions afloat be- 

 longing to an early period, concerning hoof-prints and 

 marks of horse-shoes on stones, which, if incorrect, so far 

 as an examination of these impressions proves them to be, 

 yet point to the prevalence of shoeing at a very remote age. 

 For instance, there is an old tradition that, in the west of 

 England, not far from the Devil's Coit, St Colomb, and 

 standing on the edge of the Gossmoor, there is a large 

 stone, upon which are deeply-impressed marks, which a 

 little fancy may convert into the imprints of four horse- 

 shoes. This is ' King Arthur's Stone,' and these marks 

 were made, so says tradition, by the horse upon which 

 the ancient British king rode when he resided at Castle 

 Denis, and hunted on these moors.' 



' Romances of the West of England. First Series, p. 204. 



