Blacksmith's Tale

[Archie Zietman]

Hello.
For school a few months ago I had to write a story in the style of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, for humanities. I wrote one called The Blacksmith's Tale, which I recently reworked a bit and thought I might share with you. Please forgive me, it confuses blacksmith and farrier, but that's how it was written. It's based on the Paw Paw Wilson's story of why blacksmiths ring their anvils from anvilfire.com but in modern times:

The Blacksmith's Tale

On days when lightning splits the sky asunder,
And farmer's ears are deafened by thunder,
Then water spills and sloshes in the mires
And businessmen turn on their big gas fires
And warm the house and listen to the rain
For in their comfort they do not feel pain.

On such days the blacksmiths ring
Their anvils, and do toil as they sing.
And one such man made merry in his forge
He was not one who would sit and gorge
On cookies, but would work and not waste time
For he was poor and needed every dime.

He made such wonderful sets of horseshoes,
That great horse racers would come and pay their dues
To have this man farry their massive steeds
So they could gallop the track and do great deeds.
But still this craftsman did remain quite poor,
For to buy a foursome of shoe,
He charged a mere price of one hundred twenty two.

Now Satan it is known has horses hooves
Upon which are set terrible grooves.
This makes it rather hard to walk
Across tarmac and at the same time talk,
For he must keep one eye upon the road,
And the other to look for trucks with heavy load,
Which he can steal and drive right down to hell
For down there trucks and cars do sell
For pretty pennies, and many of them at that
Enough for a devil to buy himself a hat
A Yankees one to cover up his corns
For if he walks the earth on sunny morns
Drivers are very likely to honk their horns.

It just so happened that as the devil drove,
A stolen truck with a stolen stove
That he saw a crowd controller's horse being paired
For shiny shoes at which the devil stared,
And wanted them to gild his grooven hooves
Which would allow him ease to groove his moves
At many sinful discos down in hell
(For a pair his stove he'd gladly sell)
And so he did, and with five twenties went
Back to the farrier's house far down in Kent.
He gave the money to the smith,
Who looked at the bills and gave a hearty sniff.
"You lack a twenty, and two twos,
I cannot make you a shiny pair of shoes,
But if you agree to get what you paid for,
I will indeed make you two not four."
"xxxx you! Fit me a pair for my hooves,
That down in hell I may pull groovin' moves!"

The blacksmith he was a good and moral man,
But needed the money to buy a fan.
So he took the fiend's money and then did make,
A set of horseshoes for the devil to take.
He was a trickster, a religious man too,
He detested all the devils that don't pay, as humans do.
So he shined the shoes up so they glittered like gold
And to the devil slyly he told:
"Here are your shoes, the best in the land
Now let me please put them on you by hand."

The cunning young smith did a service to God,
For when the nasty devil he shod,
He used nails that were far too long
He pounded them in Bong! Bong! Bong!
So that the devil was hirp'ling with pain,
So that he very nearly went insane.

The blacksmith tap-tapped away at the shoes which,
He made far too small so that they would itch
The deceitful devil's feet,
And he tripped and fell right down on his seat.
For on the shoe soles the blacksmith had put
A coating of tarmac along with some soot.

So the devil ran away, and screamed as the shoes clanked
And the blacksmith, 'twas God that he thanked
for letting him teach the devil a lesson, with a shoe
So the devil learned, I hope you did too
You get what you pay for.


copy to story page S020

[Caius]

this did make me truly burst forth with mirth.
lol this is good, i can't write in verse at will as you seem to do. i hope you got high marks for it!

[Bentiron1946]

Very good, very good! I hope that the prof gave thee a good grade for the work. B)