276 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



After the departure of the Romans from Britain, and 

 the invasion of the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, we find 

 history for a long period nothing but a tissue of traditions. 

 We may believe that the Saxons occasionally, if not con- 

 stantly, shod their horses ; but whether in the same 

 fashioned shoe that the ancient Britons and Gauls used, is 

 a matter for doubt. Mr Syer Cuming ' says he has seen 

 a shoe very like in form that which Chifflet describes as 

 found in Childeric's tomb, and which was said to have been 

 discovered with Saxon weapons in Kent. It was of small 

 size, very thin, and much oxidized. Elsewhere, at a later 

 period, he remarks : 'The question regarding the employ- 

 ment of horse-shoes by the Teutonic tribes of Britain has 

 received some slight elucidation. I feel confident that the 

 Anglo-Saxons shod their steeds, and that they called the 

 metal shoe calc-rond, i.e. rim-shoe; though Bosworth 

 says the name signifies a round hoof; and my confidence 

 is supported by the fact of the discovery of some horse- 

 shoes in a Saxon burial-place in Berkshire. Mr T. Wills 

 permits me to lay before you a horse-shoe, which there 

 seems good reason to regard as of Saxon origin ; it is 

 about three inches and seven-eighths long, exceedingly 

 thin, agreeing in this respect with the previously-mentioned 

 horse-shoe found with Saxon remains in Kent, and the 

 iron of which it is composed is of that peculiar ropy kind, 

 so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon era. It is sharp at 

 the extremities, has no calkins, and the six large, square 

 nail-holes are cut clean through the substance, and not 

 counter-sunk to receive the nail-heads. This curious 

 specimen was recovered from the northern side of the 

 ' Journal of the Archaeological Association, vol. vi. 



