Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/416

 runs the moral of the tradition, iron would soon be beyond price!

There was to be seen at Ellrich, in Germany, in days long gone by, four horse-shoes, of immense size, nailed to the door of the old church. They astonished everybody; and since the church was destroyed, they have been carefully preserved in the curate's dwelling. In very ancient times, Count Ernest rode one Sunday morning from Klettenberg to Ellrich, in order to contend, glass in hand, with the most intrepid tippler, for a chain of gold. He met a great number of rivals, and defeated them all; and having put the chain round his neck, he was returning, as conqueror, through this little town to Klettenberg. As he crossed the principal thoroughfare, he heard the vespers chanted in the church of Saint Nicholas: drunk as he was, he made up his mind to enter the sacred building. So he rode in, through and over the people, up to the very altar; but scarcely had his horse put its feet on the steps to clear them, than all at once its four shoes were torn off, and it fell with its rider, both stiff dead on the floor. The shoes have been preserved for ages as a memorial of this event.

Even the loss of shoes from the hoofs appears to have given rise in the middle ages to as great an amount of superstition, as the virtues ascribed to their discovery. So late as the 16th century we find the accomplished diplomatist, brave soldier, and skilled poet, Du Bartas, blaming the humble little plant, moon-wort (Botrychium lunaria), for drawing the iron coverings from the horses' feet.