I need help trying to determine if I’ve had a brilliant idea, or I’m remembering seeing/watching a similarly brilliant idea.
So… the idea involves a pouka (aka puca, phouka, kelpie, each-uisge or aughisky depending on where in the UK the beast lives) which is a type of mythical shape-shifter. This particular one sometimes takes on human form - generally as a man - and at others appears as a horse. When it’s a horse it enjoys luring the unsuspecting to ride on its back, at which point it will promptly ride into the nearest body of water, drown their foolish rider, and eat them.
One way you can tell a pouka from a real horse is that they don’t wear horseshoes.
Now does the following sound familiar, or did I really think of it myself?
A human observes a “horse” and notes that said horse lacks shoes, which is pretty unusual for the time and place. The authentic human also meets a charming man around the time they first spy said horse and comes to consider the man a new friend. One day they see the horse again, and realizes that the horse is now shoed. A short time later they find their new friend with horrible injuries to his feet (and hands, maybe) that stem from having horse shoes nailed to them…
A horsehoe is nailed to the equivalent of fingers/toenails and, done properly, does not cause injury. So your hypothetical should not have “horrible” injuries to his hands and feet. His finger/toenails might be really torn up, though.
:smack: I forgot to mention that the shoeing was done by someone who thought they knew what the pouka was, and did it in a way that would inflict pain on both the horse and the man when it shifted back to that form.
Horses walk around on the tips of the equivalent of our middle finger/toe. So this person wouldn’t have a messed up hand or foot. They’d have an injured middle finger.
The only problem is after one hot nail a horse will kick or stomple you clear into next tuesday. An angry horse in a confined space is a deadly threat to human life. Was the horse extremely sedated at the time?
Also, the human body part equivalent into the hoof is just the last bone of the finger and the nail. So even if directly analous damage was inflicted, he would have two fucked up toes, and two fucked up fingers (specifically, the tip of the middle finger of each hand). Not two fucked up feet.
Well, since we’re talking magic and stories here… I think you can get away with it. Assuming the person applying the shoes has some magic of their own, of course.
The man having injuries exactly matching those of the werewolf is a pretty old idea… The Romans had stories like that…
But, c’mon, nothing is new anymore! We’ve had hundreds of millions of storytellers. So… Tell yours!
If the guy doing the horseshoeing had his suspicions, he might have made some other indicating mark, without the pouka’s awareness. Cut a really teeny little “X” mark just below the knee, or something along those lines. Or carve his initials into the hoof. Or feed the horse one of those magnets that ranchers feed to cattle, that are supposed to help sweep out nails and staples and things. Or feed the horse a really powerful laxative…
A horse’s hooves are analogous to the fingernail of the human middle finger. But how is that remotely relevant? We’re not talking about a horse. What are a phouka’s hooves analogous to?
Please remember that phoukas, being fey, are extremely averse to cold iron. In horse form, a phouka would not take kindly to being shoed. Perhaps in trying to get away from the smith, the horse is injured, and there’s an equal injury on the human.
Grammar note. The usual past tense and past participle of shoe is shod. The newer shoed shows up in some dictionaries for both forms, as does the older shodden for the past participle, but I wouldn’t use either them.
It’s not fully baked on the realism level (hooves not analogous to human feet and hands, unshod horses common) but then neither are pookas so I say go for it. Iron being toxic to the Faerie Folk could be worked in (bridle bits have iron in them too).
(hijack) I have often wondered if the iron being deadly trope was a memory of iron age people displacing stone age peoples in Britain. (/hijack).
