Strode

The babes of Strode are born with tails.

“As Becket, that good saint, sublimely rode,

Thoughtless of insult, through the town of Strode,

What did the mob? Attacked his horse’s rump

And cut the tail, so flowing, to the stump.

What does the saint? Quoth he, ‘For this vile trick

The town of Strode shall heartily be sick.ʹ

And lo! by power divine, a curse prevails—

The babes of Strode are born with horse’s tails.”

Peter Pindar: Epistle to the Pope

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.