Chapter Shield of Love to Shoes of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

In Turkish weddings, as soon as the prayers are over, the bridegroom makes off as fast as possible, followed by the guests, who pelt him with old shoes. These blows represent the adieux of the young man.—Thirty Years in the Haram, 330.

In Anglo-Saxon marriages, the father delivered the bride’s shoe to the bridegroom, and the bridegroom touched the bride on the head with it, to show his authority.—Chambers’ Journal, June, 1870.

Shoe the Gray Goose, to undertake a difficult and profitless business. John Skelton says the attempt of the laity to reform the clergy of his time is about as mad a scheme as if they attempted to shoe a wild goose.

What hath laymen to doe, The gray gose to shoe!
   —Skelton: Colyn Clout (1460–1529).

(“To shoe the goose” is sometimes used as the synonym of being tipsy.)

Shoe the Mockish Mare, shoe the wild mare, similar to “belling the cat;” to do a work of danger and difficulty for general and personal benefit.

Let us see who dare Shoe the mockish mare.
   —Skelton: Colyn Clout (1460–1529).

There is a boy’s game called “Shoeing the Wild Mare,” in which the players say—

Shoe the wild mare;
But if she won’t be shod, she must go bare.

Herrick refers to it (Works, i. 176) when he says—

Of blind-man’s-buffe, and of the care
That young men have to shooe the mare.

“To shoe the colt” means to exact a fine called “footing” from a new associate or colt. The French say, Ferrer la mule.

Shoes (He has changed his), “mutavit calceos,” that is, he has become a senator, or has been made a peer. The Roman senators wore black shoes, or rather black buskins, reaching to the middle of the leg, with the letter C in silver on the instep.

(For several other customs and superstitions connected with shoes, see Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, pp. 1134-5.)

Demonides’ Shoes. Demonides was a cripple, and when some one stole his shoes, he remarked, “Well, I hope they will fit him.”—Plutarch: Morals.

Lord Chatham, hearing that some one had stolen his gouty shoes, exclaimed, “I wish they may fit him.”