FOR want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
The earliest known written version of a rhyme along the lines of ‘For Want of a Nail’ can be found in Confessio Amantis (‘The Lover’s Confession’), a 33,000-line poem by John Gower (c. 1330-1408), published between 1386 and 1390:
For sparinge of a litel cost
Ful ofte time a man hath lost
The large cote for the hod [hood].
‘For Want of a Nail’ is a fine example of the sort of nursery rhyme written by teachers, probably in this case military men, to encourage others to think carefully about their actions and consider all possible consequences. In this case, the speaker is explaining, through a clever build-up of repeated phrases, each differing very slightly from the previous one, how a huge disaster could have been avoided by a small, thoughtful action only a few stages earlier. The lesson is that the entire kingdom could be lost to an enemy army if small tasks such as nailing a horseshoe correctly are not carried out properly. As the Boy Scouts say, ‘Be prepared.’
These days, the rhyme could be seen as a version of the Butterfly Effect – how mathematicians illustrate Chaos Theory by suggesting how some tiny, seemingly insignificant action, such as a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world, can, in principle, trigger a series of escalating events that could result in a devastating tornado somewhere else.
Getting back to that ill-fitting horseshoe, it appears that in days gone by most English kings didn’t court chaos but prepared particularly thoroughly for battle, taking few chances when it came to equipment and training. As early as 1252, the Assize of Arms ordered that all men aged between fifteen and sixty-five must be ‘equipped with a bow and arrows’ and that those in possession of between 40 and 100 shillings should also own a dagger and sword. In 1363, King Edward III ordered archery practice to be compulsory for all non-military citizens on a Sunday and every public holiday, giving rise to the great archery contests of the Middle Ages.
The skill of English archers became celebrated. Indeed, legend has it that the famous two-fingered V-sign evolved from the gestures of archers fighting at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The myth claims that when the French captured English archers, they cut off the two fingers used to pull back the bowstring to ensure they could no longer use their bows against them. As a result, those who had not been handicapped in this way would show their defiance by waving two fingers to their enemy, illustrating they were still capable of beating them.