To-day horse clothing, though not intended to be of an ornamental character, we should imagine, is still often decorated with a monogram of the horse’s owner.
Perhaps one of the most interesting survivals in connection with horses is to be found in the brasses which decorate those used for carts and waggons. Dr. Plowright[48] has shown that many of these ornaments, which are really amulets put on to the harness with a view to protecting the horses against the evil eye, are of Moorish origin. He contrasts their style with the ornamental details shown in the Alhambra, and he figures a number which take the form of a crescent, or a crescent enclosing an eight-rayed star, and others in which the ornament shows eyes and eyebrows conventionalized. In other cases we get the fleur-de-lys treated in an arabesque way, the escallop shell and the mystic interlaced triangles (which were considered the talisman of talismans, and are known as the seal of Solomon or the shield of David), with a crescent in the centre. Miss Lina Eckenstein[49] figures many other horse brasses which can be compared with those worn by Roman cart-horses. Among them is the crescent, which was also worn by women carved in ivory, and by certain senators as ornaments on their shoes.
The crescent is made from a thin plate of metal, and is worn by children on the west coast of India, with the points upwards, as a protection against the evil eye, and gold ornaments of similar shape are among those which were worn in ancient Peru.
The moon, from times of remote antiquity, has been represented by a ring for the full moon and a half-ring or sickle for the crescent. Miss Eckenstein does not, however, carry the origin of the horse amulets back to the stone stage of civilization, but she thinks that the crescent represents two boars’ tusks joined together by a thong, and the horse-amulet now worn in Italy shows the thinness and sharpness of curve that would be evident in one which was made out of boars’ tusks.
Fig. 163.—An English horse amulet in the form of a crescent. The flat places near the tips of the horns are evidence that the form is derived from two boars’ tusks.
We may point out that in some English crescents the hollows which one tusk makes by wearing against its fellow are represented by little flat places on the horns of the crescent near their tips. (See Figure [163].)
The brasses seen in England to-day are worn on the face-plate, breast-plate, and martingale. On grand occasions, such as May Day celebrations, and the cart-horse parade of Whit Monday, brasses are specially put on, though there is a tendency now for them to be stamped out of thin metal instead of being cast, with the result that they soon wear out. German horses wear the crescent on a strap which dangles below the right ear.