T IS IMPOSSIBLE TO USE ANIMALS WITHOUT “HUMANIZING” THEM, and beasts of burden may be the best example of this. It is generally easy for human beings, especially manual laborers, to identify with animals such as horses, mules, or llamas. Their burdens are a metaphor for the challenges we face constantly in endeavoring to survive and prosper. We speak of “financial burdens” and “emotional burdens,” as well as physical ones. From a human point of view, these creatures are generally accorded a status that corresponds to what they carry. Those that bear human beings, such as horses, generally rank higher than those that, like mules, transport luggage. The legendary mounts of heroes—such as Al-Borak which carried Mohammad to Heaven—are, of course, the most prestigious of all.
ASS, CAMEL LLAMA, AND MULE
Orientis partibus
Adventavit Asinus,
Pulcher et fortissimus.
Sarcinis aptissimus.
(From the East,
the ass approached,
lovely and very strong,
the best baggage carrier)
—Carol sung at the Medieval Feast of the Ass at Beauvais, France
The donkey has a reputation as a sort of holy fool, strangely poised between wisdom and stupidity. A charlatan exhibits a supposedly learned donkey at a fair.
(Illustration by J. J. Grandsville, from Fables de la Fontaine, 1839)
The ass and camel are, for the most part, peaceful animals that help with daily tasks, while the horse excels in arts of war. The ass and camel both have greater endurance than the horse, though they are not as fast. The camel thrives especially well in hot, dry climates, and the ass is very sure-footed in mountains. The ancient Mesopotamians noticed that the cross between a mare with a jackass would produce a mule, which had many advantages of both, though it has sometimes been stigmatized as a product of an “unnatural” union.
The Avesta, a scripture of the Zoroastrians, told of an ass with three legs, six eyes, nine mouths, and a single horn. This animal was as large as a mountain and stood in the middle of a wild sea, whose waters it forever purified. This early unicorn symbolizes the primeval innocence of a time when the world was new, but it also shows the awe with which the ass was once regarded.
The ass, or donkey, was first domesticated in ancient Egypt around 3000 BCE, well over a millennium before the horse. In the Bible, God enjoins Job to marvel at the difference between his donkeys, those in the wild, and those kept by human beings:
Who gave the wild donkey his freedom,
and untied the rope from his proud neck?
I have given him the desert as a home,
the salt plains as his own habitat.
He scorns the turmoil of the town:
there are no shouts from a driver for him to listen for.
In the mountains are the pastures that he ranges
in quest of any green blade or leaf (Job 29: 5-8).
The ass survives precariously in the wild today, but very few people think of that animal as anything but tame. It began to acquire new associations through domestication, without casting off the old ones, until it became one of the most complex animal symbols of all.
The Hebrews had a special affection for the ass because of the unstinting service it performed, much as the Arabs did for the camel. According to the classifications in Leviticus, the ass was an “unclean’“animal, yet, in contrast to the pig, the people of Israel never regarded it with revulsion. After the asses carried the Israelites and their possessions from slavery in Egypt, Yahweh ordered that the first born of every ass be consecrated with the sacrifice of a lamb.
Once the King of Moab summoned the magician Baalam to place a curse on the Israelites. Baalam set out on his she-donkey, when an angel, sword in hand, appeared in his path. The donkey turned aside from the road, and Baalam beat her to draw her back. This happened a second time, and then a third. At this, Baalam picked up a stick and began to strike the donkey furiously. The donkey reproached Baalam saying, “Have I not carried you since you were a young man? Have I ever failed you? Why do you beat me now?” Then Baalam looked up and saw the angel. “It is lucky for you,” the angel told him, “that your donkey saw me, though you did not, and turned aside. Had you continued, I would have killed you, but I would have let the donkey live.” This story, from the Old Testament (Numbers 22:22-35), is one of the earliest and most explicit condemnations of cruelty to animals in the ancient world. For us, perhaps there is another lesson: If people knew a bit more about the proud history of the ass in human culture, perhaps being called an “ass” would be taken as a compliment rather than an insult.
Twelfth-century French depiction of a troubadour as a donkey. It is very similar to illustrations from the ancient Near East.
The ass was used for work in vineyards and was sacred to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. The Greeks, however, generally associated the ass with the Phrygians, their traditional enemies. In one legend, King Midas, a follower of Dionysus and king of Phrygia, failed to appreciate the music of Apollo. “You have the ears of an ass,” said the god of the sun to Midas. When Midas looked into the water, he saw that his ears had grown long and hairy. The ears of a donkey became a familiar symbol of stupidity. The “fool’s cap” used by jesters in Medieval Europe had two points with bells, symbolizing of the ears of a donkey. In Carol Collodi’s Pinocchio (1882), the hero, a naughty marionette who wants to become a real boy, is close to having his wish, when he decides to play rather than go to school. Like other lazy children, he soon grows donkey ears. After a while, he is transformed entirely, not into a boy but into a donkey, and must go through several further adventures before finally becoming a human being.
In the fables of Aesop, the ass is always a loser. In one tale, an ass put on the skin of a lion and roamed about frightening man and beast. A fox heard him braying and said, “You would have scared me too … if I had not heard your braying.” Socrates, in Plato’s dialogue “Phaedo,” stated that a person who is too concerned with bodily pains or pleasures might, after death, be reincarnated as a donkey.
The novel The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, written in Rome during the first century CE, exploited, but also looked beyond, the image of the donkey as a fool. The hero, Lucius, had an affair with the maid of a great sorceress. When the couple saw the mistress of the house turn herself into an owl and fly away at night, Lucius wanted to do the same. His mistress gave him a potion that was supposed to turn him into a bird. It was the wrong charm, and Lucius became a donkey. His mistress told him that he could only be turned back into his true form by eating roses. When he tried to nibble some roses at an altar, the stable boy chased him away. Thus began a long series of misadventures, in which Lucius as a donkey was beaten, forced to carry heavy sacks, and even sexually abused. As a beast, he learned humility and wisdom. When his ordeal was completed, he received roses from a priest of the goddess Isis, turned back into a man, and was initiated into Egyptian mysteries. One interpretation of the story is that the form of an ass represents the physical body, imprisoning yet challenging the human spirit.
In popular Christian iconography, an ass, together with an ox, attends the infant Jesus in the manger. This is actually not mentioned in the Bible, and the image is probably inspired by the words of the prophet Isaiah that, “The ox knows its owner and the ass its master’s crib” (Isaiah 1:3). An ass also carries the Holy Family to safety in Egypt, and one later bears Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem. When the ass lost prestige, Christians often understood Jesus’ the choice of a mount as a sign of his humility. For the contemporaries of Jesus, however, riding an ass was a sign of majesty, since it was still the mount of kings. Well into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, clergy preferred to ride on an ass rather than a horse in emulation of Christ the King. Legend has it that the ass still bears a dark cross over its shoulders as a symbol of Christ’s passion.
The ass appealed to the Medieval love of paradoxes. They understood that what appeared to be foolishness could sometimes be holy innocence, even wisdom. A pageant known as the “Festival of the Ass” became popular in the northwestern parts of Medieval Europe. In Beauvais, France, a splendidly dressed maiden, representing Mary and bearing an image of Christ, was seated on an ass, for a magnificent procession from the cathedral to the parish church of Saint Stephen. Instead of praises of Christ, however, the choir sang a hymn to the ass. At the end, instead of saying Deo gratias or “Thanks to God,” the congregation would say “hee-haw, hee-haw, hee-haw.” The clergy, of course, often complained about the apparently sacrilegious ceremonies. Nevertheless, the festival was tolerated, in the name of both religious tradition and fun.
For many animals in Western tradition, popular symbolism has combined radically different traditions of Christianity and paganism, and the ass may be the best example of all. The pagan tradition, which made the ass an object of mockery, has been more dominant. But there was usually affection behind the mockery. The ass, unlike the horse, was very rarely accused of being the familiar of a witch or tried in Medieval courts.
In ancient Mesopotamian art, we often see the motif of a donkey standing upright on his hind legs, playing the harp, and singing. This motif was taken back to Europe by crusaders during the Middle Ages, where it symbolized the divine folly of love. Shakespeare uses this motif in his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The mischievous fairy Puck gave Bottom, a simple tradesman, the head of an ass. Bewitched by a magic potion, the fairy queen Titania doted on Bottom for an evening; after the charm wore off, she was abashed and no longer dared to defy her husband.
A worldly equivalent is the donkey whose excrement was gold, which appeared in the “Donkey Skin” by Charles Perrault and many other European fairy tales. The donkey again combined something wonderful with something ridiculous. In the fairy tale “The Magic Table, the Gold Donkey and the Club in the Sack” by the Grimm brothers, the image was, so to speak, “cleaned up.” A donkey spewed gold from its mouth whenever a person said the word “Bricklebrit!” The image was a strange anticipation of the “automatic teller” machine used today.
The tradesman Bottom with the fairy Titania in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
(Illustration by Arthur Rackham)
The lore of the ass is full of wonders, in East as well as West, yet these have almost never been without a touch of humor. The Taoist immortal Chang Kwo-lao is an elderly gentleman who rides a donkey for vast distances every day. Whenever a journey is finished, he folds the donkey up like a piece of paper and puts it away.
The toughness and endurance of the ass were celebrated in the popular story of the American steelman, Joe Magarac; the name “Magarac” is Slovak for “jackass.” “All I do is eatit and workit same lak jackass donkey,” said Joe. He was born from a mountain and had superhuman strength. When there was no more metal to mine, Joe stepped into the furnace and melted himself down into steel. This tale is often taken for folklore, but Owen Francis created the character in an article from the November 1931 issue of Scribner’s Magazine.
The donkey is now most familiar as a symbol of the Democratic Party in America. The idea was partly inspired by the statement of Ignatius Donnelly to the legislature of Minnesota not long after the Civil War that the Democratic Party was like a mule, lacking both pedigree and posterity. Thomas Nast popularized the symbol in political cartoons. The metaphor was first intended as an insult, but the Democrats certainly didn’t mind. In fact, they adopted the symbol officially in 1874. Perhaps they realized that the symbolism of the donkey has always had many layers. If the long ears of a donkey suggest foolishness, its large teeth are a formidable weapon. The donkey is tough; he has a devastating kick. He may have a reputation for stubbornness, but isn’t that often a virtue in politics?
Among the most eloquent tributes to animals ever written is Platero and I by the Juan Ramón Jiménez (1957). It is a series of remarks addressed by the author to a gentle donkey named “Platero,” “loving and tender as a child but strong and sturdy as a rock.” The donkey is not only a helper but a wonderful listener as well. The companions enjoy together the flight of butterflies, the playing of children, the touch of water, and all the richly sensuous life of a remote village in Spain.
As the horse took over the more glamorous role as the mount of warriors, the camel, like the ass, was increasingly regulated to bearing burdens. Though sometimes praised for humility, the camel had the additional reputation of being lascivious. Jeremiah used the camel as a symbol of Israelites who had commerce with heathens:
A frantic she-camel running in all directions
bolts for the desert,
snuffing the breeze in desire;
who can control her when she is in heat? (Jeremiah 2:23-24).
Though the Bible does not specify their mounts, the Magi or wise men that brought gifts to the infant Jesus are traditionally portrayed riding on camels, perhaps to indicate their exotic origins. The Wife of Bath in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, however, urged women to fight their husbands like camels.
The camel, in addition to sharing a reputation for foolishness with the ass, had the additional stigma in European culture of being filthy and ugly, a sort of deformed horse. Medieval bestiaries said that camels are so drawn to slime that they avoid clean waters for dirty ones. This ill repute even obscured the grace of the giraffe that, at least since Pliny the Elder through the Middle Ages, had the misfortune of being considered a camel with spots—a “cameleopard.”
Advertisers in the mid-twentieth century exploited the reputation of the camel for ugliness by creating the cartoon character of Joe Camel, who had the face of a camel and the body of a man, to suggest a blue-collar toughness. He was used to sell Camel Cigarettes, which have the animal standing before a pyramid as their symbol, and both humps suggest the belly of a pregnant woman—a proof of his virility. Joe was such a commercial success that anti-smoking activists singled him out for protests, and ads featuring Joe made illegal around the end of the nineties. Today, the camel of Arab lands, like the ass and mule of the Occident, has become a symbol of a vanishing way of life.
In Latin America, the llama was domesticated as a beast of burden about 5,000 years ago, approximately the same time as the donkey in the West. Statues of llamas have been found in tombs of the Mocha and Inca Indians, based in what is now Peru. The pre-Columbian figurines are often quite animated and individual, suggesting that llamas were viewed with a good deal of affection, though they may not have been accorded numinous powers. They still carry bundles for Indians high in the Andes Mountains, an environment to which they are very well adapted. At lower altitudes, the mule usually is the preferred helper of many solitary workers such as peddlers. Even today, in many villages, llamas and mules are used to deliver mail, and there is a quiet intimacy between these animals and their handlers.
HORSE
Are you the one who makes the horse so brave
And covers his neck with flowing hair?
Do you make him leap like a grasshopper?
His proud neighing spreads terror far and wide.
Exultantly he paws the soil of the valley,
And prances eagerly to meet the clash of arms.
—JOB 39:19-21
The experience of riding a horse may be the closest thing to union with an animal that people have ever known. The rider may determine the direction; the horse sets the rhythm. The rider rises and falls in a sort of trance as landscape passes beneath. The union of animal and man is commemorated in myths of the centaur, human to the waist and equine beneath.
For the most part, centaurs were dominated by animal instincts. Perhaps the fierce horsemen of the Eurasian steppes, glimpsed from a distance by people who did not yet know how to ride, inspired the legends of centaurs. The drinking and lechery of centaurs were notorious. Invited to the marriage feast of Pirithous, king of the Lapths, and princess Hippodamia, they became drunk and tried to carry off the bride. The Lapths finally defeated them in a ferocious battle, which has usually been interpreted as the triumph of refinement over barbarism. The story was a favorite subject of painters during the Renaissance.
There are several colorful myths about the origin of centaurs. In one tale, Ixion, King of Lapithea, was invited to Mount Olympus to dine with Zeus. He tried to seduce Hera, the wife of his host, and thought he had succeeded, but had actually only made love to a cloud. From that union, the centaurs were born. The tale is, perhaps, about the power of imagination, which centaurs have symbolized ever since. The story, however, does not have a happy end, for Zeus fastened Ixion to a fiery wheel that endlessly revolves in Hades.
Apollonius of Rhodes wrote that the deity Cronos was once having an affair with Philyra, daughter of Ocean, when his consort Rhea surprised him. Chonos leaped out of bed, changed himself into a stallion, and galloped off. Philyra wandered away in shame but later gave to birth to the centaur Chiron. Among centaurs, only Chiron had a reputation for great wisdom. His students included the warrior Achilles and the physician Asclepius.
Sometimes the wildness of centaurs proved more powerful than civilization. Ovid told the story of Canus, a young girl who made love to the god of the sea. When the deity promised to grant any wish she might have, she asked to become a man, so that she might take part in battle. The god granted her request, but, fearing for her safety, he added the gift of invulnerability to any weapon made of metal. Canus proved invincible in battle until she (or “he”?) encountered a band of centaurs. Not having learned to melt metal, they attacked and killed Canus with their primitive weapons such as rocks and sticks.
The wise centaur Chiron teaching the young Achilles.
(Illustration by Willy Pogany, 1918)
In the mythology of northern Europe, the giant horse Svadilfari was a sort of centaur. The Norse gods once commissioned the giant Fafner to build the walls of their city Asgard. If he could finish the work by spring, he would receive the goddess Freya in marriage, together with the sun and the moon; if not, he would forfeit all pay. Svadilfari helped the giant by not only drawing the stones but also setting them into place. Loki, the mischievous god of fire, changed himself into a mare. Svadilfari ran after Loki, so the wall remained unfinished. From the union of Sadilfari and Loki, the eight-legged steed Sleipnir was born, on which the god Odin journeyed through the sky and to the realm of the dead.
In the time of Homer, horses drew chariots but did not yet carry riders on their backs. After the Trojan War had dragged on for ten years, the Greeks pretended to sail away and left a giant horse made of wood on the shore. The Trojans, thinking the horse an offering to the gods, took it inside the city walls. The Greeks had only temporarily withdrawn to a nearby island, and had concealed warriors inside the wooden image. When night came, they slipped out and opened the city gates for invaders. Apollodorus wrote that Helen of Troy had walked around the horse imitating the voices of the wives of men inside. One of the men wished to call out in reply, but Odysseus clamped his hand over the soldier’s mouth. Perhaps this incident records an imperfectly remembered rite of fertility, an offering to a horse deity that the Greeks believed had granted them victory.
Horses have been found in graves in France, Ukraine, Scandinavia, China, and many other places, buried to carry their masters in the world to come. Shamans, especially in the Arctic Circle have sacrificed horses to accompany them on ecstatic journeys to other worlds. Apollo, the Roman god of the sun, rode across the sky in a chariot drawn by horses; so did the Persian Mithras. Perhaps the most popular symbol of transcendence today is Pegasus, a horse with wings, which sprang from a drop of blood of the monster Medusa after she was decapitated.
Though primarily herbivorous, horses have always been closely associated with war. Plutarch, in “Of Isis and Osiris,” told an Egyptian legend that Osiris, god of the dead, was once instructing his son Horus. The father asked what animal would be most useful in battle, and Horus replied that it was the horse. Osiris asked why his son had not picked the lion, to which Horus replied that, “a lion was a useful thing for a man in need of assistance, but that a horse served best for cutting off the flight of an enemy and annihilating him.” On hearing this, Osiris realized that his son was ready to become a warrior.
Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, was also a deity of horses, and sired the first horse. According to one myth, he moistened a stone with his semen (that is, the foam of a wave), thus fertilizing the earth, and out leaped the horse Scyphius. In another, Poseidon, in equine form, raped Demeter, the goddess of grain, after which she gave birth to the horse Arion. Hippocamps—with the heads of horses, the bodies of serpents, and the tails of fish—drew Poseidon’s chariot. Horses rise and fall like waves as they gallop along, while their manes are like foam. In a herd, they move to the rhythm of flowing water.
When Poseidon and Athena, the goddess of wisdom, were competing to be patron of the largest city in Attica, the immortals decided that the role would go to whoever gave the greatest gift. The god of the sea struck the ground with his trident and made a horse spring forth. Athena, however, created an olive tree, and her gift was judged finer, so the city was named “Athens” after her. The contest records a conflict between the nomadic life, in which the horse is absolutely central, and the settled life of agriculturalists.
In Greek mythology, King Diomedes of Thrace fed strangers who visited his land to his mares. The ninth labor of Hercules was to capture the man-eating monsters. After a terrible struggle, he killed Diomedes and fed the King’s lifeless body to these horses, which, after eating their former master, returned to a normal equine diet. The tale reflects the fear that horses inspired at a time when they were not yet fully domesticated but might still be seen roaming in the wild. The Romans knew horses only as domestic animals, but they admired the way they remained spirited even in the service of human beings.
In the latter fourth century BCE, the Greek mercenary Xenophon wrote the first book on horsemanship that has come down to us. He approached horses without awe but with remarkable concern and respect. The horse, he understood, was the soldier’s companion in battle and shared his hardships. Much of his treatise was devoted to detailed descriptions of such matters as how to place the halter about the neck of a horse. Xenophon’s foremost rule was never to deal with a horse thoughtlessly or in a fit of anger.
The Roman Emperor Caligula talked of naming his favorite horse Incitatus as consul. The most popular sport in ancient Rome was chariot racing. The Romans would race two chariots, each drawn by two horses, at the festival of Mars in the middle of October. The finest of the horses, the one who drew the winning chariot on the inside of the track, would then be sacrificed to Mars, the god of war. The head and tail of the horse would then be cut off and decorated. Sometimes, the head would be fixed to the house of a prominent farmer or other citizen.
The horse was also the only animal to set apart an entire social stratum—that of “equestrians” or horsemen in Rome, which eventually became the knights of the European Middle Ages. This was an elite class of warriors, for riding was confined to officers in the Roman army. Finally, however, their superior horsemanship enabled barbarian tribes to conquer Rome. In contrast to the Romans, who made riding a privilege reserved for the upper class, the tribes had entire mounted armies. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, writing in the fourth century CE, described the Huns as primitive, bestial people who were almost one with their horses; they would not dismount even to eat or sleep.
Until the two world wars, battles were very often won or lost by gallant cavalry charges. The Biblical prophet Elijah ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot drawn by horses (2 Kings 2:11). The horse is also one of twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. The last incarnation of Vishnu, when he comes to bring salvation to the world, is to be the horse Kalki. Mohammed rode a horse named Al-Borak from Mecca to Medina and up to heaven. Al-Borak, who was generally painted with the face of a woman, could predict danger and see the dead.
The terrifying Russian witch Baba Yaga may originally have been a horse-goddess. She lived in the depths of the woods in a house on chicken legs, surrounded by a fence made of human bones that were topped with skulls. She ate people like chickens, but the heroes in fairy tales often risked death by visiting her in search of help through magic or sage advice. Baba Yaga had a herd of mares, which were her daughters, and sometimes Baba Yaga herself became a mare.
In the story of “María Morevna,” recorded by Alexander Afanas’ev, Prince Ivan went to Baba Yaga and asked for a horse fast enough to escape Koschei, the spirit of death, who had stolen his bride. He obtained his goal by tending the horses of Baba Yaga, with the help of friendly animals, for three days. Riding the horse given to him by Baba Yaga, Prince Ivan rescued his bride. His beloved, María Morevna, was a spirit of vegetation who had to spend part of the year in the underworld, much like the Greek deity Persephone. Koschei was a ruler of the Underworld, similar to the Greek Hades or the Roman Pluto. Baba Yaga, though far less benevolent, has some of the traits of Demeter, mother of Persephone, who was also mistress of horses.
A similar myth may be the origin of the famous English story of Lady Godiva. Lord Leofric had taxed his people beyond what they could bear. His wife Godiva spoke in their defense, and he agreed to reduce his taxes only if she would ride naked through the streets. She did so, covered only with her long hair, and all the people turned their heads away, so as not to look, except one man named Tom, who then immediately went blind. Leofric, in shame, revoked all taxes except those on horses.
The horse was also sacred to Freya, the Norse goddess of love and fertility, who may be the origin of Godiva’s legend. An image of that goddess had once been drawn through the streets by horses every year in spring. Like Persephone, Maria Morevna, and Freya, Godiva may have been a personification of vegetable life, while Leofric was a spirit of winter. “Peeping Tom” may originally have been a human sacrifice accompanying the rites of Freya.
Horses had been often associated with fertility, so, as the story of Lady Godiva illustrates, the intimacy of horse and rider seems to have a sexual side. People worried that grooms might mate with horses, producing who-knows-what dreadful progeny, and such bestial unions were often punishable with death in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Since horses were especially associated with masculine power, women had to be especially careful. Modesty required that they not place their legs around the animal. On Roman coins, the Celtic horse-goddess, Epona, was displayed riding sidesaddle upon a mare. Thomas More, who had a ribald as well as a saintly side, once rebuked his daughter who did not wish to ride sidesaddle as befitting a lady, by saying, “Well, my girl, no one can deny that you are ready for a husband, since your legs can straddle so large a horse.” In Shakespeare, when the young Venetian girl Desdemona has eloped with the Moor Othello, the villainous Iago says to her father, “… you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you’ll have your nephews neigh to you; you’ll have coursers for cousins …” Enemies of the Russian Empress Catherine spread rumors, which circulate to this day, that she copulated with her horses. The horse was often considered a disguise for the devil or a companion for a witch.
The sexuality of horses was sacralized in the figure of the unicorn. This fantastic animal had, in the course of a long intricate history, also taken on features of the ass, rhinoceros, narwhal, goat, and many other creatures. In Medieval Europe, the unicorn was thought of primarily as a horse with a single horn. That protuberance, clearly phallic, seemed to absorb and transform all that was disturbing in equine sexuality, leaving the animal divinely chaste. According to legend, the unicorn could not be caught by force, but it would come to a young virgin and lay its horn in her lap, at which point it might be captured without difficulty. This story reflected archaic mythology of the sacred hunt, as the young girl came to symbolize Mary and the unicorn to symbolize Christ. The capture and slaying of the unicorn were an allegorical crucifixion acted out not with malice but with solemnity in the tapestries and paintings of the Middle Ages. Nobody has entirely reconstructed the meaning of this elaborate allegory, but it may be about domestication. Our sexuality, like the unicorn itself, cannot be overcome through force alone, yet, also like the unicorn, it can be tamed.
Archaic beliefs about horses show up frequently in European fairy tales. In the fairy tale “Faithful John” by the Grimm brothers, ravens tell a servant that a horse will trot up to the young King, to take him up into the sky forever. The King may only be saved if somebody jumps on the horse and shoots it quickly. This probably alludes to an archaic horse sacrifice that accompanied many shamanic journeys. In Grimms’ “The Goose Girl,” a princess speaks to the head of her beloved horse that has been sacrificed. The animal offers sympathy but no sage advice, showing that the old magic will not work in the modern world.
Many Catholic saints are patrons of horses, no doubt a legacy of pagan times. One is Saint Eloy, who was a blacksmith to the Frankish kings. Once, he was asked to shoe a horse possessed by the Devil. He blessed the animal, took off its legs, placed shoes on its feet, and then returned the limbs to their rightful place. Another patron of horses is Saint Stephen, the Church’s first martyr. On his feast day, December 26, parishioners in Poland shower the priest with oats as a gift from their horses. But horses, like most animals that had once been sacred, were often demonized in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. The long association of horses with the poles of fertility and death did not always make them beloved, nor did their longstanding association with goddesses.
Horses became familiars of witches and, at times, even a disguise for the Devil himself. One example comes from The Quest of the Holy Grail, an anonymous Medieval romance from Britain written in the early thirteenth century. Sir Perceval, the holy fool of Arthurian legend, found himself alone in a vast forest. A woman appeared mysteriously and offered him a horse in exchange for his service, and Perceval accepted with delight. She went for a moment into the depths of the woods and returned leading an enormous black horse. Perceval could not look on the horse without fear, but he mounted it and galloped on until the trees ended and a wide river crossed the path. No bridge was to be seen yet the horse continued onward. Unable to stop, Perceval made the sign of the cross. At that instant, the horse threw him to the ground and plunged into the river. Perceval heard howling and shrieking, as flames rose from the water. The woman and the horse had both been devils.
The equestrian, or knightly, tradition lasted longest in the American continents, where there was plenty of open space, and large herds of feral horses roamed the plains of the United States and Argentina. In stories of the American “Old West,” wandering cowboys were a bit like the knight-errants of the European Middle Ages, moving from one town to the next in search of fortune and adventure, but the role of horses in battle was steadily reduced as the world industrialized. The disastrous, if valiant, charge of the Polish cavalry against German tanks at the beginning of World War II has become a symbol of romantic resistance to the industrial world.
Horses gradually came to be associated more with recreation than with work, and more with women than with men. The novel Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (1877) started a tradition of horse stories primarily for young girls. The book is a fictive autobiography of a stallion that draws carriages, starting with his early life in open meadows, going through several masters, and ending with a pleasant retirement on a farm. Horses now represent a gentle aspect of male sexuality, which contrasts with the machismo that is so often celebrated in the mass media of today.
Today, horses are also becoming nostalgic reminders of our past. The horse race, that favorite sport of the ancient Romans, is now a gathering point for many who seem in some way bypassed by the modern world, from aristocrats to Mafiosi. Horses, however, are still a common means of transportation in remote areas where there are few roads. Their maneuverability still makes them helpful to police, even in cities, and horses have been trained to enter apartments and walk up stairs. But urban horses are rare enough to make many bystanders stare in surprise and admiration whenever they appear in public.
Though horses are far slower and less powerful than our motors today, the horse still provides the ultimate model for our locomotives, automobiles, and rocket ships—for anything that is fast and sleek. The word “horsepower” is still used as a unit of force in motors. The metaphor of the “Trojan Horse” is perhaps more widely used than any other image from the ancient world. It can refer to just about anything from internal subversion in a government to a computer virus. In the late 70’s a nuclear power company was called “Trojan” and had a horse as its logo. Demonstrators against nuclear power in California built a large wooden horse. As they paraded it around, out popped a person dressed as the Grim Reaper with his scythe.