In some Swiss valleys the European lesser horseshoe bat began to vanish after streetlights were installed, perhaps because those valleys were suddenly filled with light-feeding pipistrelle bats.
You could see the giant pooh-bahs at the head of the horseshoe, the blood visibly draining from their faces, and the junior woodchucks at the other end of the horseshoe engaged in peals of unrestrained laughter.
A smelting furnace turned iron ore from the near-by mountain into lumps of pure iron all ready for the farm's blacksmith to hammer and beat into horseshoes, pincers, tongs, crowbars, hammers, and other tools needed on the farm.
I can still hear the hiss of the white-hot horseshoes being plunged into a bucket of water, can still sniff the burny smell of the hoof to which a warm shoe was fixed.
Along the outside of the belt are carved designs, and on the front of the curve of the horseshoe shape, cut into the polished stone, is the stylised image of a toad.