Byways in British Archaeology

by Walter Johnson

One of the Wold barrows, which was opened by Canon Greenwell, contained a whole chariot and the bones of two horses, placed alongside a human skeleton. In another mound the wheels alone had been buried[1154]. A third grave yielded wheels and an iron bit[1155]. Similar discoveries were made at Nanterre, in France; horses were found entombed with portions of their trappings, together with tires of wheels, and various bronze and iron objects, evidently betokening a Transitional period[1156]. In all the foregoing cases we must suppose that the horse was sacrificed at its master’s funeral—the coincidence of natural or of violent death must have been exceedingly uncommon save in warfare. The custom of chariot-burial persisted for centuries into the Christian era, and an assemblage of relics, kindred to those mentioned, is common in Scandinavian graves of the Viking Age (A.D. 700-1000), wherein unburnt bodies were interred[1157]. Again, an Anglo-Saxon grave at Reading was shown to contain the skeleton of a horse, human bones, and a sword remarkably rich in its ornament[1158]. At a still later date, A.D. 1389, when Bertrand Duguesclin was buried at St Denis, several horses, which had been previously blessed by the Bishop of Auxerre, were sacrificed, or, as one account says, compounded for by the owners.

Were we ignorant of the foregoing facts, certain modern practices of an analogous nature would have to be dismissed as inexplicable. Once acquainted with the ancient instances, however, the student can account for the atavism which here and there betrays itself. We cannot, of course, in the absence of overlapping evidence, be certain that the burial of the horse along with its master is a custom which has never died out. There may have been a continuous bond of tradition, or again, folk-memory may have lain almost dormant for centuries, to be unconsciously revived at a later time. A few instances will now be rapidly surveyed.

A surgeon, one Mr Thomas Sheffield, dying in 1798, at Downton, in Wiltshire, left instructions that he should be interred in his garden, and that, when his favourite horse should die, it was to be laid by his side. Mr Sheffield was buried as he desired, but in 1807 his body was removed to the village churchyard[1159]. We are left to infer that the horse was placed in its master’s grave, as was undoubtedly done in the case, quoted by Southey, in which a man of Salisbury, “in derision of religion,” commanded that his horse should be slaughtered and buried with him[1160]. Again, so recently as 1866, when Queen Victoria’s huntsman died, his favourite horse was shot, and its ears were placed in his coffin and buried in his grave in Sunninghill churchyard, Berkshire[1161]. Parenthetically, we notice that, in Patagonia, the horse of a deceased person is still killed at the grave[1162]. Such incidents as these do not seem to be far removed in time from the days of barrow burial. Not quite so apposite is the case of Wellington’s horse, Copenhagen, which was buried (A.D. 1836) with full military honours at Strathfieldsaye (Hampshire), and which was commemorated by a tombstone bearing an appropriate inscription and epitaph. In thus honouring his charger, however, the Duke had a prototype in the Emperor Augustus, who, as Pliny relates, erected a tomb to his horse, on which occasion Germanicus Caesar wrote a poem[1163]. Turn the facts which way we will, they seem to tell of an ingrained instinct which unexpectedly reveals itself to the surprise of the majority of folk—surprise, nevertheless, which speedily becomes tinged with sympathy.

Not so distinctly a reversion, but still probably a custom derived from primitive observances, was the Mediaeval ceremony, when a great person was buried, of leading his horse before the body and presenting the animal to the ecclesiastical authorities as an obituary due[1164]. Such legacies were very common, so that a single example will suffice. At the obsequies of Henry V., three war-steeds were led to the altar, and were there formally bequeathed to the Church[1165]. It will be fresh in the memory of all, how, at the funeral of King Edward VII., that monarch’s favourite horse was led by a groom behind the body of his late master.

In considering how far these lingering customs may represent real survivals, it will be of some assistance to collect examples showing to what extent the horse cult was observed in the ceremonial routine of the ancient Celts and Teutons. In the first place, we are struck by the respect which was paid to white horses in particular. Tacitus, in a familiar passage, asserts that the German tribes kept milk-white horses in consecrated woods and groves[1166]. From these horses, which were never degraded by being put to any kind of labour, warnings and auguries were received by the priestly caste. Grimm tells us that there existed, at Drontheim, temples in which sacred horses were kept and fed[1167]. Other peoples have betrayed a similar affection for the white horse. Such animals, Virgil relates, are not usually put to work, since they are beloved of the gods; it is criminal to kill or wound them, except for sacrifice. Herodotus describes how the sacred white horses of the Persians were drowned when Cyrus was endeavouring to cross the river Gyndes[1168]. The same writer states that, in his day, Russia teemed with white horses[1169]. White was pre-eminently the noble colour. In the Apocalypse, a white horse is symbolical of victory and triumph[1170]. This idea is also common among classical writers[1171]. The figure of a white horse appeared on the Standard of the Saxons, and later, in the arms of Saxony and the House of Brunswick. In our day, a white horse constitutes the Kentish emblem, and is popular as a tavern sign. The celebrated “White Horse” carved on the Chalk downs near Uffington, Berkshire, and its fellow, incised on Bratton Hill, near Westbury, Wiltshire, though usually believed to commemorate victories over the Danes, are more probably to be referred to the Late Bronze, or Early Iron Age. In each case, the neighbouring country abounds with prehistoric remains—earthworks, barrows, and trackways[1172]. Certain details of the carvings, such as the bird-like head of the Uffington Horse, and the crescentic tail of the original, but now destroyed, “Horse” of Bratton, have been compared with corresponding features on early British coins[1173]. These coins were probably debased representations of the gold stater of Philip II. of Macedon. In modern times, other intaglios have been cut on our hillsides; these, while reviving the practice, have introduced breeds of horses unknown to the Britons. This seems a fitting place to observe that we have some indication of horse figures in Late-Celtic ornament. On a Late-Celtic bucket (c. first century B.C.) unearthed near Marlborough, in 1807, and enclosing burnt human bones, curious representations of the horse were carved[1174]. Belonging to about the same period are the queer horse-like figures depicted on a bronze-mounted wooden bucket, coming from the Late-Celtic cemetery of Aylesford, Kent[1175]. And, to conclude this section of our subject, we will note that the Anglo-Saxon tumulus in Taplow churchyard, Bucks. (cf. [p. 81] supra), yielded portions of a bucket decorated with horseshoe symbols[1176]. We find representations of supposed horses appearing later on church fonts; the celebrated eleventh-century font of Burnsall, in Wharfedale, will serve as an example[1177].

Our discussion of the white horse has carried us far afield, and may have momentarily masked the general question. Not white horses alone were used in sacrifice and divination. The sacrifice of any horse was a most solemn event, attended with much ceremony, alike among Persians and Indians, among Teutons, Finns and Slavs[1178]. In auguries, too, the animal bore an honoured part. The Greeks, Strabo informs us, deemed the neighing of a horse an omen of good[1179]. In Germany, divinations by means of the horse lasted till the seventh century, for, when St Gall died,

Fig. 87. Capturing the White Horse. In this scene the artist depicts an imaginary incident in connection with the legend of the “White Horse of Kent.” The animal, which is of a rather idealized strain, has broken the cords of the captors, and remains “Invictus.”

unbroken horses were charged with the burden of his coffin, and to their decision was entrusted the choice of a burial-place[1180]. In Denmark, horse-sacrifices lingered until the early part of the eleventh century; a specific instance is given by Keysler, on the authority of the historian Dithmar, who was the Bishop of Mersburg, or Merseburg, and who died A.D. 1028. Dithmar relates that the Danes were wont to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany by sacrificing ninety human victims, together with an equal number of dogs and cocks, in order to appease the infernal deities[1181]. The custom indicates a not infrequent kind of early compromise. Kemble states that, although bulls are known to have been used for divination in England, he knows of no allusion to augury by means of horses[1182]. A few faint traces, however, suggestive of the horse cult, may be detected. There is, for example, that curious story, told by Bede, how the priest Coifi rode on a stallion when he went to destroy the images in the heathen temple at Godmundingham (now Goodmanham) in Yorkshire[1183] (cf. [p. 32] supra). As Bede’s narrative runs its length, we learn that a high priest among the pagan Saxons might lawfully ride only on a mare[1184], and one is inclined to speculate whether any of the idols took the form of this animal. We know that the stallion was the most honoured among horses[1185], and it is expressly stated that, when Coifi borrowed the king’s stallion, he did so in contempt of his former superstitions. The change of steed, at any rate, coincided with an onslaught upon established custom, and we shall see later that the priestly rule about riding mares only was abandoned. Another vestige of the horse cult was the belief, common among Teutonic peoples, that the last wisp of corn in the harvest field was inhabited by the sacred horse. For this reason, a horse, representing the corn-god, was customarily slaughtered, and eaten with special rites by the reapers at the harvest supper. Professor Frazer describes some quaint harvest customs, prevalent in Hertfordshire and Shropshire, which furnish examples of the corn-spirit, appearing in the shape of a horse or mare. And, again, in his recent work, Totemism and Exogamy, he records the Red Indian practice of sacrificing costly horses to appease the “medicine” or corn-spirit[1186].