hobble chain

• hobble-chain

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hobble chain (plural hobble chains)

1. (Australia) Chain used to fetter horses or cattle.
   • 1889, Henry Lawson, “The Ballad of the Drover”, in Poems and Stories by Henry Lawson‎, Raleigh, NC: Hayes Barton Press, published 2006, page 221:

     He hums a song of someone / He hopes to marry soon; / And hobble-chains and camp-ware / Keep jingling to the tune.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter XI, in Capricornia‎, page 173:

     According to his own statement, at about the age of seventeen, as the result of having been flogged by Grunter with a hobble-chain […] he crept on him one night and battered him with a nullah-nullah, leaving him for dead.

   • 1992, Bryan Clark, Yammatji: Aboriginal Memories of the Gascoyne, Hesperian Press, p. 111

     "Old Pottsie, the boss, used to belt Yammatji with a hobble chain. He got my uncle and got the hobble chain and belted him with it. But my uncle never fell down, even when he got hit hard."

   • 2014, Glen McLaren, Big Mobs: The Story of Australian Cattlemen‎, North Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Press, page 46:

     Each bullock had a heavy leather neck-strap on, fitted with a hobble chain and swivel, and a spare rope around its neck.