The English term “stirrup” probably is a contraction of the early English “stige-rap,” a word that comes from “stigan,” to mount, and “rap,” rope—in short, a mounting-rope. In the eighth century A.D. the Angles were using saddle horses in large numbers, according to the Venerable Bede, some of whose writings, however, are said not to bear the impress of strict veracity. Yet it is probable that he speaks of what he knew when he tells us that about the year 631 A.D. “the English first began to saddle horses,” while many of the horsemen who opposed the incursion of the hordes of Romans are known beyond dispute to have been mounted on saddled horses.
Mention of the mare, Alborak, called also Borak, must be made—though only a mythical animal—as she was said to have carried Mahomet from earth into the seventh heaven. “She was milk-white,” we are told, like Fadda, the mule, with “the wings of an eagle and a human face with a horse's cheeks,” while “every pace she took was equal to the farthest range of human sight.” In Arabic the word means literally “the lightning.”
Procopius, who wrote in the sixth century A.D., is looked upon generally as a dependable authority, and probably upon most occasions he wrote the truth. Yet he would seem to have made one or two rather grave misstatements when speaking of the horse in its relation to the history of his time.
In an interesting way he describes certain stirring scenes in the war between the Angli who had settled in Britain and the Varni—the Werini of the “Leges Barbarorum”—whose region lay chiefly east of the Rhine. The direct cause of this war was the positive refusal of the king of the Varni to marry an Anglian princess to whom he had been affianced for a considerable time.
“These islanders,” wrote Procopius, referring to the Angli, “are the most valiant of all the barbarians with whom we are acquainted, and they fight on foot. For not only do they not know how to ride, but it is their lot not even to know what a horse is like, since in this island they do not see a horse, even in a picture, for this animal seems never to have existed in Britain. But if at any time it should happen that some of them, either on an embassy, or for some other reason, should be living with Romans or Franks, or with anyone else that hath horses, and it should there be necessary for them to ride on horseback, they are unable to mount, but other men have to help them up and set them on their horses' backs; and again, when they wish to dismount, they have to be lifted, and set down on the ground. Neither are the Varni horsemen, but they too are all infantry. Such then are these barbarians.”
Clearly he misstated facts in this instance, for it is beyond dispute that horses were known in Britain at the time to which he refers. For the rest the description may be considered more or less accurate.
It is interesting to note in this connection that whereas in the tombs of the Anglo-Saxons the shield and the weapons of the buried warrior are usually discovered, bits and harness are found in these tombs in rare instances only. On the other hand in the Scandinavian barrows in Scotland the bones of men and horses mixed have been discovered frequently.
Perhaps the first historical allusion to horse racing, as we understand it now, and to “running” horses, as race horses continued to be called for many centuries afterwards, is the one that occurs in the ninth century A.D., when Hugh, the founder of the royal house of Capet, in France, made a present of running horses to King Athelstan in the hope that in return the king might allow him to wed his sister, Ethelswitha.
Hengist and Horsa are said by some historians to have displayed interest in horse racing, but the statement is not based upon indisputable evidence, any more than the assertion that because Hengist and Horsa are alleged by one historian at least to have given the order that forms of horses should be cut upon the chalk hills of Berkshire therefore all the Saxon banners must have borne as a device a white horse.