Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1910 — Number of Nails to a Horseshoe. [ARTICLE]

Number of Nails to a Horseshoe.

Centuries ago there lived a farrier, Walter le Brun bv name, whose dexterity at the anvil on the occasion of a great tilting meeting on the banks of the Thames was noticed by the then reigning monarch, Edward 111., who rewarded the blacksmith —by granting him sufficient land adjoining the tilting green for the erection thereon of a forge. As quit rent-he had to present annually to the king six horseshoes and sixty-one horseshoe nails. To the modern mind the number of nails would appear to be superfluous, but when It is remembered that the horseshoes of that period required ten nails apiece it will be seen that the’ .calculations of Edward 111. merely allowed one over in case of accident. Furthermore, the shoes were all to be for the horse’s fore feet, from which fact some historians draw the inference that the animals ridden in the knights tournaments were encouraged to injure each other with their front hoofs.—London News.