Spirit of the Horse

by William Shatner

  In the old market place on the top of the hill the people built a temple to Athena, the ruins of which may still be seen. The olive tree grew and nourished; and, when you visit Athens, people will show you the very spot where it stood. Many other trees sprang from it, and in time became a blessing both to Greece and to all the other countries round the great sea. As for the horse, he wandered away across the plains towards the north and found a home at last in distant Thessaly beyond the River Peneus. And I have heard it said that all the horses in the world have descended from that one which Neptune brought out of the rock; but of the truth of this story there may be some doubts.

  The Horse, Hunter, and Stag

  THE AESOPICA (AESOP’S FABLES)

  The Greek myths were told and retold, and were not written down for many millennia. When they were, they were still recited with many variations, some large, some minor.

  I was astonished to discover that we know so little about one of the best-known storytellers in world history. Aesop was a slave who lived in the fifth century BCE in Greece. That’s it! We’re not even sure whether he actually invented the stories that are attributed to him, only popularized them, or both.

  Aesop told and retold dozens of “fables”—short stories with a moral lesson—which featured “anthropomorphic” animals, meaning they walked and talked like people. And in their very human personalities, they were instantly recognizable as people the listeners knew … and could learn from. Like this headstrong horse.…

  A quarrel had arisen between the Horse and the Stag, so the Horse came to a Hunter to ask his help to take revenge on the Stag. The Hunter agreed, but said: “If you desire to conquer the Stag, you must permit me to place this piece of iron between your jaws, so that I may guide you with these reins, and allow this saddle to be placed upon your back so that I may keep steady upon you as we follow after the enemy.”

  The Horse agreed to the conditions, and the Hunter soon saddled and bridled him. Then with the aid of the Hunter the Horse soon overcame the Stag, and said to the Hunter: “Now, get off, and remove those things from my mouth and back.”

  “Not so fast, friend,” said the Hunter. “I have now got you under bit and spur, and prefer to keep you as you are at present.”

  Moral: If you allow men to use you for your own purposes, they will use you for theirs.

  THE WORLD IS A CAROUSEL

  Flying horses are everywhere.

  In Norse mythology, for example, Hófvarpnir was the name of the steed that was ridden by Gná, the goddess of the breeze. They galloped through air and over the seas whenever she was sent on an errand by the goddess Frigg, wife of Odin—king of the gods. In fact, the name itself means “One Who Tosses His Hooves.” Pretty much everything we know about Hófvarpnir comes from two small passages in the Icelandic writer Snorri Sturluson’s sprawling saga, Prose Edda …

  ‘Mikä siellä lentää, mikä siellä kulkee ja ilman läpi liukuu?’

  ‘En lennä, kumminkin kuljen ja liu’un ilman halki Hófvarpnir-hevosellani, jonka Hamskerpir sai Gardrofa’n kanssa.’

  Which, according to scholar Jesse Byock, translate as:

  “What flies there?

  What fares there?

  or moves through the air?”

  “I fly not

  though I fare

  and move through the air

  on Hófvarpnir

  the one whom Hamskerpir got

  with Gardrofa.”

  If there is a fanciful horse that comes close to rivaling the enduring popularity and symbolism of the flying horse, it is the Centaur—half man, half horse. Centaurs, along with their female counterparts, Centaurides, are known primarily from Greek mythology. That has to do with the wide dissemination of the Greek tales throughout Europe. Adapting them, the Romans helped to codify many of these tales.

  However, not just the Greek but many cultures, in every age, had a reverent approach to the horse—from the Japanese to the Native Americans. Like the Greeks, they used them in war, they used them in peace, and they had statues of them. They worshiped them in body and spirit.

  In fact, an interesting anecdote. Some Japanese warriors—among others—fashioned saddles that were as crude as a sheepskin lashed to the back of a horse, so you were essentially riding bareback and only occasionally with something that passed for stirrups. I was in Japan and I got on a horse that was trained and owned by Japanese entertainers who would put on a horse show, showing how the Japanese soldiers mounted and fought on horseback in the days when there were these fiefdoms and the saddle barely existed, and the horse was half wild.

  I got on and off very quickly—much to my chagrin, because I really wanted to experience this. But I didn’t trust the saddle and, more importantly, I trusted the horse even less.

  Regardless of the saddle, regardless of the country, that image of a horseman straddling a mount represented the ultimate power of the human being in a nontechnological age. The rider’s size and innate ability was joined and amplified by the horse’s stature and ability.

  It is said that in the Minoan/Aegean world, nomads were mounted on horses, which was something strange to the nonriding cultures they encountered. And as they approached, either in the half-light or the desert reflections, they appeared as half man, half animal. The Aztecs apparently had a similar fear and wonderment about the Spanish cavalry. Such sightings, in far distant times, were probably not just the origin of the myths, they are rooted in something as old as civilization, something that is so deeply bound in the human psyche that it’s almost inextricable. Something so atavistic yet fitting that we had to create myths to personify an ecstatic, almost preternatural relationship that is otherwise inexplicable.

  Poets have struggled to accomplish as much with love and sex throughout the millennia. At least the horse is somewhat consistent.

  My own sleep is sometimes filled with Centaur-like imagery of being one with the horse. It will start with me atop the horse galloping across the field, the horse’s head visible ahead, his eyes becoming my eyes as if it were me galloping. This may be a Freudian concept embedded in our subconscious, as I suggested above. Perhaps our genetic memory knows something that anthropologists do not—that we arose from a common ancestor, recently enough for it to be there, still, in our DNA.

  I wonder, though, if there may be something else at work, something less grandiose or perhaps working in tandem with pantheism. Perhaps there’s a very practical way to explain these ancient stories and ideas, at least in some cultures. Perhaps they were designed to be tutorial. I’ve had feelings of being united with the horse because as you get older your legs are less fast, and you don’t run or even walk as well as you did. But when you are on horseback, the power is yours again—greater than in your youth. In a way you are greater than youth, because you have wisdom, an inner tranquility that allows you to merge with the horse.

  In later years I have had dreams of the horse and me being one, and I’m running and the horse is running and it’s all the same. Perhaps it is from the subconscious desire to be greater than what we are that the idea of the Centaur emerged.

  Most likely, it is all of the above.

  As evidence, I offer the púca or pooka, a shape-changing Irish spirit that was either a black horse, a goat, or a rabbit. They were infamous for bringing bad luck to whoever they came in contact with. I’ve found, in various tales, that they could assume human form but always with some part of the animal still present: bunny ears, a goat’s beard, a horse’s tail. Now, it would seem odd that the Irish would select three creatures that we generally perceive as docile to be demonic. Why would they have come up with this?

  I believe it is symbolic. The stories can be traced back to the Norse and I believe that the idea is simple: any peaceful animal, any animal that has no dark, conniving features, can be corrupted by a human or by human interaction.

  As equestrians, we always hope that the best qualities of horse and rider are united. A union of what Daoism calls our good
and “authentic nature” can only produce a better whole.

  The Fox and the Horse

  CHILDREN’S AND HOUSEHOLD TALES, by THE BROTHERS GRIMM (1812)

  The remarkable brothers Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859) are probably the best known and most widely read fairy tale anthologists in the world. They were German scholars, linguists, and authors whose avocation was collecting and writing down folklore. So much of this material was spoken—told around the hearth by parents to children, and then to their children—that the brothers feared at some point it would be lost if they didn’t write it down. Many stories were so characteristic of local culture that the brothers wanted them to be preserved to showcase the minds and hearts of the people. Among the stories they gave to the world were “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella,” “Rapunzel,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Snow White,” and the one below.

  A peasant once had a faithful Horse, but it had grown old and could no longer do its work. Its master grudged it food, and said: “I can’t use you any more, but I still feel kindly towards you, and if you show yourself strong enough to bring me a Lion I will keep you to the end of your days. But away with you now, out of my stable”; and he drove it out into the open country.

  The poor Horse was very sad, and went into the forest to get a little shelter from the wind and weather. There he met a Fox, who said: “Why do you hang your head, and wander about in this solitary fashion?”

  “Alas!” answered the Horse, “avarice and honesty cannot live together. My master has forgotten all the service I have done him for these many years, and because I can no longer plough he will no longer feed me, and he has driven me away.”

  “Without any consideration?” asked the Fox.

  “Only the poor consolation of telling me that if I was strong enough to bring him a Lion he would keep me, but he knows well enough that the task is beyond me.”

  The Fox said: “But I will help you. Just you lie down here, and stretch your legs out as if you were dead.” The Horse did as he was told, and the Fox went to the Lion’s den, not far off, and said: “There is a dead Horse out there. Come along with me, and you will have a rare meal.” The Lion went with him, and when they got up to the Horse, the Fox said: “You can’t eat it in comfort here. I’ll tell you what. I will tie it to you, and you can drag it away to your den, and enjoy it at your leisure.”

  The plan pleased the Lion, and he stood quite still, close to the Horse, so that the Fox should fasten them together. But the Fox tied the Lion’s legs together with the Horse’s tail, and twisted and knotted it so that it would be quite impossible for it to come undone.

  When he had finished his work he patted the Horse on the shoulder, and said: “Pull, old Grey! Pull!”

  Then the Horse sprang up, and dragged the Lion away behind him. The Lion in his rage roared, so that all the birds in the forest were terrified, and flew away. But the Horse let him roar, and never stopped till he stood before his master’s door.

  When the master saw him he was delighted, and said to him: “You shall stay with me, and have a good time as long as you live.”

  And he fed him well till he died.

  The Black Horse

  MORE CELTIC FAIRY TALES, by JOSEPH JACOBS (1895)

  In his preface, Mr. Jacobs, an English anthologist, indicates that most of the tales—like those of the Brothers Grimm—belong to regional antiquity, their origins unknown and unknowable.

  The “garron” referred to in this story is a small but sturdy workhorse.

  Once there was a king and he had three sons, and when the king died, they did not give a shade of anything to the youngest son, but an old white limping garron.

  “If I get but this,” quoth he, “it seems that I had best go with this same.”

  He was going with it right before him, sometimes walking, sometimes riding. When he had been riding a good while he thought that the garron would need a while of eating, so he came down to earth, and what should he see coming out of the heart of the western airt towards him but a rider riding high, well, and right well.

  “All hail, my lad,” said he.

  “Hail, king’s son,” said the other.

  “What’s your news?” said the king’s son.

  “I have got that,” said the lad who came. “I am after breaking my heart riding this ass of a horse; but will you give me the limping white garron for him?”

  “No,” said the prince; “it would be a bad business for me.”

  “You need not fear,” said the man that came, “there is no saying but that you might make better use of him than I. He has one value, there is no single place that you can think of in the four parts of the wheel of the world that the black horse will not take you there.”

  So the king’s son got the black horse, and he gave the limping white garron.

  Where should he think of being when he mounted but in the Realm Underwaves. He went, and before sunrise on the morrow he was there. What should he find when he got there but the son of the King Underwaves holding a Court, and the people of the realm gathered to see if there was any one who would undertake to go to seek the daughter of the King of the Greeks to be the prince’s wife. No one came forward, when who should come up but the rider of the black horse.

  “You, rider of the black horse,” said the prince, “I lay you under crosses and under spells to have the daughter of the King of the Greeks here before the sun rises to-morrow.”

  He went out and he reached the black horse and leaned his elbow on his mane, and he heaved a sigh.

  “Sigh of a king’s son under spells!” said the horse; “but have no care; we shall do the thing that was set before you.” And so off they went.

  “Now,” said the horse, “when we get near the great town of the Greeks, you will notice that the four feet of a horse never went to the town before. The king’s daughter will see me from the top of the castle looking out of a window, and she will not be content without a turn of a ride upon me. Say that she may have that, but the horse will suffer no man but you to ride before a woman on him.”

  They came near the big town, and he fell to horsemanship; and the princess was looking out of the windows, and noticed the horse. The horsemanship pleased her, and she came out just as the horse had come.

  “Give me a ride on the horse,” said she.

  “You shall have that,” said he, “but the horse will let no man ride him before a woman but me.”

  “I have a horseman of my own,” said she.

  “If so, set him in front,” said he.

  Before the horseman mounted at all, when he tried to get up, the horse lifted his legs and kicked him off.

  “Come then yourself and mount before me,” said she; “I won’t leave the matter so.”

  He mounted the horse and she behind him, and before she glanced from her she was nearer sky than earth. He was in Realm Underwaves with her before sunrise.

  “You are come,” said Prince Underwaves.

  “I am come,” said he.

  “There you are, my hero,” said the prince. “You are the son of a king, but I am a son of success. Anyhow, we shall have no delay or neglect now, but a wedding.”

  “Just gently,” said the princess; “your wedding is not so short a way off as you suppose. Till I get the silver cup that my grandmother had at her wedding, and that my mother had as well, I will not marry, for I need to have it at my own wedding.”

  “You, rider of the black horse,” said the Prince Underwaves, “I set you under spells and under crosses unless the silver cup is here before dawn to-morrow.”

  Out he went and reached the horse and leaned his elbow on his mane, and he heaved a sigh.

  “Sigh of a king’s son under spells!” said the horse; “mount and you shall get the silver cup. The people of the realm are gathered about the king to-night, for he has missed his daughter, and when you get to the palace go in and leave me without; they will have the cup there going round the comp
any. Go in and sit in their midst. Say nothing, and seem to be as one of the people of the place. But when the cup comes round to you, take it under your oxter, and come out to me with it, and we’ll go.”

  Away they went and they got to Greece, and he went in to the palace and did as the black horse bade. He took the cup and came out and mounted, and before sunrise he was in the Realm Underwaves.

  “You are come,” said Prince Underwaves.

  “I am come,” said he.

  “We had better get married now,” said the prince to the Greek princess.

  “Slowly and softly,” said she. “I will not marry till I get the silver ring that my grandmother and my mother wore when they were wedded.”

  “You, rider of the black horse,” said the Prince Underwaves, “do that. Let’s have that ring here to-morrow at sunrise.”

  The lad went to the black horse and put his elbow on his crest and told him how it was.

  “There never was a matter set before me harder than this matter which has now been set in front of me,” said the horse, “but there is no help for it at any rate. Mount me. There is a snow mountain and an ice mountain and a mountain of fire between us and the winning of that ring. It is right hard for us to pass them.”

  Thus they went as they were, and about a mile from the snow mountain they were in a bad case with cold. As they came near it he struck the horse, and with the bound he gave the black horse was on the top of the snow mountain; at the next bound he was on the top of the ice mountain; at the third bound he went through the mountain of fire. When he had passed the mountains he was dragging at the horse’s neck, as though he were about to lose himself. He went on before him down to a town below.

  “Go down,” said the black horse, “to a smithy; make an iron spike for every bone end in me.”

  Down he went as the horse desired, and he got the spikes made, and back he came with them.