Underlying such observances as those which have been described, there is an idea which gives a clue to a much-discussed problem. Folk of our generation are continually asking why the flesh of such a clean-feeding animal as the horse—a true vegetarian—should be despised as food. The question is not indeed altogether of recent date, for it was propounded in A.D. 1720 by Keysler, who reviews the subject at some length[1187]. He contends that the stringent prohibition must not be credited to the influence of the Mosaic Law; first, because no flesh, in itself, was deemed unclean for the saints, and secondly, because other articles of the ceremonial law had already at various times been abandoned with impunity[1188]. The rejection of horseflesh for food, Keysler concludes, was due to the Christian teachers, who found our pagan ancestors employing the animal in sacrifices and auguries, and eating its flesh in the subsequent repasts; hence, as a mark of disapprobation, this kind of food was forbidden to converts. The results, it is urged by the old antiquary, have been deplorable, more especially, because there is no law of Christ which prescribes this rule of conduct (Christi certe lex nulla exstat, quae eum agendi modum praescribat)[1189].
These propositions, in the main, seem undeniable. We have seen that the Palaeolithic cave-man ate horseflesh freely, and that the Britons of the Round Barrow Period were probably addicted to a like custom. There is little doubt, again, that throughout Roman Britain horseflesh was a common article of food. This is attested by the frequency of the occurrence of broken bones of the horse in the “Brit-Welsh” caves of the Iron Age[1190]. Corroboration of Keysler’s theory is afforded by historical facts. Pope Gregory III. (ruled A.D. 731-741), in a letter to St Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, forbade the eating of the flesh of wild horses as an unclean and execrable act[1191]. Yet at a somewhat earlier date, Gregory II., when consulted on the same perplexing subject, had sent a temporizing answer, shielding himself behind the famous passage in the Epistle to the Corinthians respecting meat offered to idols[1192]. So long as the new faith held its converts insecurely, and wherever Christianity was merely nominal, the frontier line of authority alternatively advanced and receded. Nearly half a century after the death of Gregory III., at the Council of Celchyth (A.D. 787), the consumption of horseflesh was noted as a stain on the character of the British Christians; their fellow-believers in the East were not guilty of such a sin (quod nullus Christianorum in orientalibus facit)[1193]. Yet the monks of St Gall not only ate horse-flesh, but returned thanks for it in the metrical grace, written by the monk Ekkehard III. (died c. A.D. 1036): “Sit feralis equi caro dulcis sub cruce Christi.” Elsewhere, too, the habit seemed incurable. The Norwegians, apparently in paying devotional honour to Odin, still ate the forbidden food during the eleventh and twelfth centuries[1194]. The growth of superstition tended to strengthen the Christian ban against horseflesh. This food was the reputed diet of giants and witches[1195]; its preparation was associated with sacrifices; it was eaten with hallowed salt. The sacrifices, in turn, were connected with popular assemblies or folk-moots[1196]. Now witches and trolls were supposed to live under mounds. Inside these mounds they held their dances, and played on pipes made of horse bones[1197]. The hillocks were, as a rule, actually barrows, the burial-places of bygone peoples, and the folk who had once raised them probably not only ate horseflesh ceremonially, but regarded it as welcome fare in times of dearth and scarcity. Successors of the mound builders continued to partake of horseflesh, and coupled the act with the worship of Odin. The ecclesiastical decrees were thus primarily directed against the pagan practice, but, because of superstition, the ban remained when its original necessity had passed away.
L’Abbé Valentin Dufour, who in the year 1868 translated and edited Keysler’s valuable chapter on the eating of horseflesh, adds a few facts which bring the story down to modern times. He tells us that the sale of horseflesh was forbidden in Paris in A.D. 1739, no reason being assigned for the prohibition. When, however, in A.D. 1784, a similar promulgation was issued, the ostensible motive was to prevent disease—there were certain maladies “que l’usage de pareilles chairs ne pouvait manquer d’occasionner[1198].” Since considerable importance was also attached to the assumed novelty of eating horseflesh, Dufour is at some pains to show that slaughter-houses (boucheries, écorcheries) existed, and that the forbidden flesh was vended, during the early part of the fifteenth century[1199]. Statutes continued to be passed against the use of horseflesh in France, until, in the early nineteenth century (1814, 1816, 1817), the commodity was allowed to be sold by certain persons who had secured the special privilege[1200]. Scarcity of food was doubtless a factor in bringing about a relaxation. By some writers it is supposed that the revulsion of feeling dates from the siege of Copenhagen (A.D. 1807), when the Danes ate horseflesh from necessity, and that the habit gradually spread all over Europe[1201]. This may be true in the general sense, but, archaeologically considered, one may doubt whether the practice had ever been really quite extinct.
The old pre-Christian veneration of the horse probably touches the groundwork of much of the folk-lore about the animal. Professor A. de Gubernatis, in his work on Zoological Mythology, deals fully with horse legends as exemplified in the Vedic, Greek, and Latin literatures, and particularly with the horse as the favourite animal of the solar hero[1202]. It is common, in ancient art, to find symbols of sun-worship associated either with the horse or the chariot, or with both. All that can be done in this place is to supply the reference. One old story may, nevertheless, be noted: that which tells how the Emperor Caligula spoke of raising his horse to the consulship. The usual explanation attributes the remark to a passing caprice, but another interpretation is conceivable. May it not be that Caligula intended the observation as a compliment to British and Gallic opinions concerning the sanctity of selected horses, opinions with which he must have been well acquainted?
We retrace our steps a little. Evidence seems to show that when the early Palaeolithic cave-men hunted the horse, they were accustomed to carry into their shelters only the fleshy parts of the carcass, together with the head of the animal, and—for ornamental purposes—the valuable tail. The long bones, which were crushed to obtain the marrow, do not appear, as a rule, to have been taken into the caves[1203]. Light may be cast on the anomalous separation of flesh and bones by a study of ancient Egyptian custom as described by Herodotus. This writer states that imprecations were heaped on the head of the sacrificial victim, so that any impending evil might fall thereon; the Egyptians, in consequence, would never eat the head of any animal[1204]. Strict taboo, as imposed among common folk, is not inconsistent with ceremonial eating by privileged individuals, and numerous instances might be given in support of this antinomy of custom. Merely as a speculation, it might be suggested that the head of the victim was at one time a delicate morsel reserved for the chieftain. In the caves of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, the skull does not seem to be of common occurrence, but in the early historic period, as shown by folklore, we catch echoes of its legendary repute. Tacitus relates that the ancient German tribes hung the heads of animals on trees as offerings to Odin. In Teutonic fairy tales, the horse’s head works miracles, especially when played upon as an instrument[1205]. It was thrown by witches into the Midsummer fire[1206]—a notable collocation of details. Russian magic teaches that ambrosia comes out of a horse’s head, and enables its possessor to do deeds of prowess. By virtue of this ambrosia one hero discomfited ninety-nine hostile monsters[1207]. In parts of Germany, horses’ heads were buried in stables; in Holland, they were hung over pigstyes; in Mecklenburg, they were placed under a sick man’s pillow[1208]. Again, in Lower Saxony, horses’ heads, projecting outwards, were carved on the gables of buildings, ostensibly for ornament, but in reality, it is probable, to prevent mischief to the horses kept within. A similar practice was observed by the builders of the older houses in Rhaetia[1209]. In modern Norway, the handles of bowls, and the ends of the wooden lever by which the primitive mangles are worked, are often formed of carved horse-heads. Numerous examples may be seen in the Horniman Museum, London. Specimens are said to have been met with in English houses also. Some authorities considered that the figures represented a Celtic legacy, but Grimm claims that the custom of carving these images, like that of horse-worship generally, belongs “equally to Celts, Teutons, and Slavs[1210].” The domain might be much extended. Even in our own day (1865), such carvings as those described have been recorded from Jutland. They were once common, it is stated, in Sussex, and Miss M. Braitmaier has figured a series of modern gable ornaments from different parts of Germany[1211]. When someone asked the meaning of the horses’ heads on the Jutish gables, the natives answered, “Oh, they are Hengist and Horsa[1212].” (Note that the name Hengist = a stallion, and Horsa = a mare.) Whether or not Hengist and Horsa were historical personages may be left in abeyance, the fact remains that they were sometimes represented by horses’ heads carried in front of the army as tutelary deities.
In certain parts of England, notably in Kent, there still survives the custom of a group of men going round at Christmas carrying a horse’s head, crudely carved in wood, and known as the “hoodening horse.” Sometimes, it would appear, a skull long buried in the soil, and afterwards dug up by chance, formed the “wooser,” “wooset,” or “husset[1213].” Mr P. Maylam, who has carefully collated the records of analogous customs from both England and Germany, considers that the word “hoodening” is not, as popularly supposed, derived either from the Norse word Odin or the Low German form Woden. He prefers to connect it with those old performances in which the hobby horse and characters representing Robin Hood and Maid Marian were prominent. A writer in the Athenaeum ridicules this idea, and prosaically refers the name to the hood or sack which concealed the supposed body of the horse—really the body of the hoodener, or performer[1214]. Yes, but why should the horse, hooded or otherwise, enter into the ceremonies at all? It is easy to deride the early school, of which Grimm is a representative, as old-fashioned and full of extravagances. But we have to face a series of converging customs, which were not begotten of a complex society like that of modern or even Mediaeval England. Only by an appeal to some primitive form of the horse cult can an ultimate solution be really obtained.
Standing in close relationship to the “hoodening horse” custom, is a somewhat weird Welsh practice, which is now nearly extinct, but which some enthusiasts have lately attempted to revive. A horse’s skull is dressed up and carried about by a performer who is enveloped in a cloak. He makes the jaws of the skull snap to the accompaniment of Welsh rhymes. Houses are visited, and largesse is demanded. The performance, known colloquially as Mari Lwyd, is traced by some to pre-Reformation usage. But doubtless, it goes back, like the “hoodening horse,” of which, perhaps, it is a mere variant, to pagan times[1215].
Virgil relates a curious tradition which bears on our subject. As the Carthaginians were digging near a venerable wood, they dug up a horse’s skull—a “courser’s head,” as the phrase runs in Dryden’s translation, and this discovery was accounted such a prosperous omen that a temple was raised to Juno on that spot[1216]. Professor Conington, garnering his knowledge from several classical writers, gives us the additional information that the head of an ox was first lighted upon, and that this was thought to portend servitude, but after further excavation, the horse’s head appeared—an earnest of plenty, combined with success in war[1217]. From Vishnu mythology comes a contradictory item, for, in that system, the mouth of hell is conceived as a huge horse head[1218].
Before quitting this department of folk-lore, we may scan the wider field of skull superstitions in general. A fox’s head, nailed to a Scotch stable door, was supposed to keep off the dreaded witch. I noticed an instance of this custom at Rottingdean, near Brighton, in 1908, but cannot be sure that any significance was attached to the fox’s head[1219]. Why, again, does the gamekeeper suspend rows of weasels, stoats, cats, magpies, and jays on his gibbet? Certainly he does this, in the first place, to prove his zealous stewardship, and perhaps with some dimly conscious belief that similar “evil-doers” will take warning. But from observation of other curious practices, scarcely to be discussed here, one suspects that the origin was ceremonial. We must also remember cases like that described by Mr Baring-Gould, who once saw, hanging on a magnificent elm at Westmeston, under Ditchling Beacon, in Sussex, the carcasses of two horses and three calves. The reason offered for this custom was that the suspension of the bodies was lucky for cattle. Keeping, however, to a consideration of heads, we notice that Sir G. L. Gomme records a peculiar instance from Hornchurch, in Essex, where the lessee of the tithes used to pay, as a Christmas tribute, a boar’s head. This payment could not depend upon the intrinsic value of the toll, nor could the destruction of a single boar be counted meritorious in itself. The tribute was obviously symbolical. Camden relates that a stag was formerly paid as part of the rent of Church lands situated in Essex. He adds that, when he was a boy, namely, in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, the priests of St Paul’s Cathedral were accustomed to meet the stag as it was brought up the steps of the sacred building. The animal’s head was then carried on a spear round the cathedral, which echoed meanwhile to the sound of horns. Of this curious ceremony, the young antiquary was an eye-witness[1220].
From a review of these facts, we may deduce that the head of a slaughtered animal bore an imputed sanctity. This was essentially the case when the animal had been offered in sacrifice, and it is to pagan and prehistoric ritual that we must look for an interpretation of the facts. The species of animal esteemed most sacred would vary with the time and the place—here, the horse, there, the ox. Later days brought other competitors for the position of honour. Only by keeping well in mind the widespread belief in the efficacy of skulls, are we enabled to understand another series of records, which we now proceed to summarize.