THE FAIRY HORSESHOE
At midnight a long time ago an honest hard-working blacksmith heard someone in his shop hammering, hammering, hammering, for all the world like another blacksmith making a shoe. But the sound was very quick and light, more like tapping, tapping, tapping. And all the time, whoever it was was whistling the prettiest tune you ever heard, and singing between times:
“I’m a cunning blacksmith,
I can make a shoe,
Heat the iron,
Bend the iron,
Hammer it true—
Il y ho, il y hoo,
Il y ho, il y hoo—
I’m a cunning blacksmith,
I can make a shoe.”
The blacksmith listened and thought, and listened and thought, and listened and thought. Then he sprang out of bed on tiptoe, crying softly, “I have it! I have it! It’s one of the wee small people. I’ll catch him if I can for good luck.” The blacksmith needed some good luck. His work was to shoe the horse and shoe the colt and shoe the wild mare; and he did it well. But he hadn’t enough to do, and so he was very poor.
Well, to go back, the blacksmith sprang out of bed on tiptoe. Then without making the least bit of noise in the world that ever was heard, he opened the door of his bedroom and looked all about the shop. He couldn’t see sight nor light of anybody, but he heard the hammering, and whistling, and the singing between times:
“I’m a cunning blacksmith,
I can make a shoe,
Heat the iron,
Bend the iron,
Hammer it true—
Il y ho, il y hoo,
Il y ho, il y hoo—
I’m a cunning blacksmith,
I can make a shoe.”
“It’s very odd,” said he, under his breath; “where can the wee small thing be!” All of a sudden, as he peered about more sharply, he spied it stuck in the girth of a white mare standing in the stall nearest the forge. The elfin smith was wearing a bit of an apron before him, and a tid of a nightcap on his head, and hammering away at a speck of a horseshoe.
“He’ll bring me good luck, if I can only catch him,” said the blacksmith so softly that his own ears could scarcely hear. And without making the least bit of noise in the world that ever was heard, he tiptoed up behind the wee small body, opened his hand, and—snatched him up, crying, “Ha, ha, I have you.” With that he opened two fingers to take a look, when—out jumped the elf, crying, “Ho, ho, see me go,” and away he did go like a streak of lightning.
But he left the wee bit horseshoe in the blacksmith’s hand. And it did bring him good luck, so that ever after he had plenty to do. So many horses and colts and wild mares came to be shod that he had to build a larger shop with nine-and-seven stalls.
When the blacksmith died, he left the good luck fairy horseshoe to his sons, and they left it to their sons, and they left it to their sons; so that if they haven’t lost it the blacksmith’s great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren have it yet.
—Angela M. Keyes