Saint Clement's Twanky Dillo Day is a Lost Hoof History Holiday

Imagine a holiday when tradition dictated that farriers and blacksmiths fire their anvils with gunpowder, then roam the streets and knock on doors, demanding liquor or cash as they sang songs with lyrics only they understood. It only happened on St Clem's Day, a festive day that has slipped off British calendars and from people's memories...unless you know where to look.  Public domain image, Chatterbox magazine, 1896.

The end of November may mean Thanksgiving Day in America, but in the British Isles, there is a forgotten holiday that you probably won't find on any calendar.

For hundreds of years, people celebrated St Clement's Day on November 23.  But now both the holiday and the saint it celebrated are lost and long forgotten in history. Hard as it is to find out what went on, much less why it went on, this day is worth remembering for its colorful couplets, enchanting songs, and evidence to the important (and powerful) role that farriers and blacksmiths played in local matters.

War Horse Hoofcare: The Way It Was

It's War Horse week on The Hoof Blog. We'll start off with a short and not very sweet video of the British Army farrier encampment somewhere in India.You can see the forges and the horses lined up, and you can also notice the division of labor between the Indians and the British. 

Who's pumping the bellows?

The second part of the clip demonstrates what they are calling the Lightwark Tackle System. I haven't found any other reference to this. It is similar to other systems used to desensitize a green horse and get shoes on it.

They didn't have much time, and this is how they got it done. I don't know how many horses broke their legs or necks or how many young Indians were seriously injured in the making of this film, but I know that the American Humane Association--the organization that watched over the making of War Horse and gave the film its highest rating for the welfare of the horses on the set--wouldn't have been pleased that the British even made this film, much less actually used that system.

It's just the way things were.

I hope you will enjoy the posts planned for this week and that you will go see War Horse, if you live in the United States or Australia. Go see it on a big screen and watch what's going on in the background as well as where the camera is pointed.

This film is from the archives of the War Horse: Fact or Fiction exhibit at the National Army Museum in London.

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© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.  

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