One of the best new songs in a traditional style has to be one composed by Australia's John Warner, a former blacksmith and current shantyman aboard the tall ship James Craig:

FARRIER'S TRADE

(Words by John Warner, © 1991, as recorded on John Warner: The Sea and the Soil, Feathers & Wedge, P.O.Box 615, Glebe NSW 2037, AU)

Chorus:

Here's to the farrier's trade,
May their anvils ever ring true,
May the Pritchel and Butier (?) still find employ,
And proud, strong horses to shoe, brave boys,
Proud, strong horses to shoe.

The anvil rang like an old church bell,
And the forge it roared like a gale,
And down the wind came a pungent smell,
That told an immortal tale;
A tale well known to the black and the bay,
To coachman, carter and carrier,
For the smell was the hoof and the burning shoe,
And the trade was the craft of the farrier. (CHO)

A blue flame lept from the crackling coals,
At its heart was a flare of gold,
And out of its heart came a red-hot steel,
In the farrier's tongs firm hold;
Onto the anvil's face it swept,
And a hammer bit into its edge,
It curved to the farrier's swift hard blows,
And it squared to the striker's sledge. (CHO)

And many a draft horse, hack or cob,
Stood fast at the hitching rails,
While the farrier bent to the fetlock's hair
With a mouth full of squarehead nails;
And offered up the shoe to the waiting hoof,
With a sizzle, a smoke, and a smell,
Pritchel and quench, hammer, clip and clench,
And file down the clenches well. (CHO)

Though the motor roars out across the world,
Its message of haste and greed,
Though the horse has gone from the highway side,
With its danger, noise and speed;
Yet down at the fence waits an ancient friend,
That progress will never unseat,
And while there's a horse, there's a need for shoes,
And farriers to tend its feet. CHO)

John occasionally posts on Mudcat.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble