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Happy Halloween!
There are many farrier headstones in cemeteries around the world. Grand anvils and headstones sporting horseshoes decorate churchyards and forgotten family plots. But I think this one is suitable for Halloween!
You'll find this stone in the churchyard at Alloway, near Ayr in Scotland. Was this farrier also a pirate (note the skull and crossbones) and someone with royal ties (note the crown)?
This graveyard is not far from Closeburn, the home of the late famed farrier Edward Martin, and I must assume that Edward knew of this stone, though I don't recall him telling any stories about it--and this stone surely has a great story!
Alloway is the town of Robert Burns's birth as well as where he set his famous poem, Tam O'Shanter. This is the universal tale of a man who simply stayed too late at the pub one night, drinking with the smith (perhaps the one buried here?) and his other pals, and had to count on his good mare Meg to get him home in foul weather.
The poem is interpreted many ways when it comes to people's views on alcohol, witchcraft and lewd behavior. But there is never any doubt about the character of the horse involved.
Tam gives his mare Meg her head to find her way home and probably snoozed in the saddle. Passing through Alloway, he's startled awake to see the church ablaze, with witches dancing in every window as the devil plays the bagpipes and the graveyard's coffins open wide.
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I won't spoil the story for you. You can read the interpretation here. (It's a great tale!)
But let it be known that Meg the Mare takes care of her rider that night...though she spends the rest of her life as testimony that something did happen on the way home, even if it was the most elaborate and world-famous tale a husband ever made up for why he was late coming home from the pub.
Spooky enough for Halloween, don't you think?