PICTISH CAVALRY: AN EQUESTRIAN WEIGHT WATCHERS?

 

By Henrik Sendelbach, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=256522

Although I’m sure the Pictish sculptors had no intention of spending valuable time and energy carving sluggish, sickly animals into their masterpieces, the horses they did carve were clearly of the best quality. Vital, and evincing high energy and spirits, they prance across the stones, tossing their long manes in the stiff Scottish breeze. To affect this great health and energy, the Picts must have set aside a crop of grain intended solely for their animals.

Oats are the preferred horse feed nowadays, but they were introduced late to Scotland. How late? And were they introduced in time to be utilized by our Pictish friends?

Here, I again refer to Irene Hughson, who tells us that both wild and cultivated oats would have been well-established by the Pictish heyday.

            But what about grass? Everybody knows that horses like eating grass, right?

Well, apparently, what everybody doesn’t know, if they’re not part of the “horsey set” – which I am not – is that excessive grazing on grass makes horses fat and sluggish. It would therefore have been important to control their access to it, meaning establishing a grazing schedule and paddocks to prevent the horses from eating themselves into an equestrian Weight Watchers program. This would have required designated grooms…

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Hughson, Irene. “Pictish Horse Carvings.” Glasgow Archaeological Journal, vol. 17, no. 17, 1991, pp. 

Wagner, Paul. “Pictish Heroic Society.” Pictish Warrior, AD 297-841, by Paul Wagner, Osprey Pub., 2002, pp. 14–21.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

POSEIDON AND DEMETER: HAPPY COUPLE, OR VIOLATOR AND VICTIM?

Image
By Alvesgaspar - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43569142 Although the above sculpture depicts the rape of Demeter’s beloved daughter, Persephone, or Proserpina, by Hades, God of the Underworld, in the myths of the ancient world there was another, earlier rape: that of the earth goddess, Demeter, herself. In Demeter’s case, the rapist was the god of earthquakes, water, and horses, as well as the Underworld: Poseidon. I chose to use Bernini’s  The Rape of Proserpine  as the illustration of this post because I felt it vividly depicted the shock and horror of this ancient outrage. The two stories might have been a “twinning”, i.e.: Persephone’s later rape by Hades may just possibly have been a retelling of the original violation of Demeter by Poseidon. Here’s the initial story:   When Demeter was wandering in search of her daughter [Persephone], she was followed, it is said, by Poseidon, who lusted after her. So, she turned, the story runs, into a m
Read more

ACHILLES AND PENTHESILIA: NECROPHILIA, OR SACRED MARRIAGE?

Image
  By ArchaiOptix - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=88625666 Rage. The great bard, Homer, employed wrath as the driving force behind the events of his  Iliad , including the deaths of his leading man, Achilles – the warrior-hero of the Greeks – and the Amazon Wonder Woman, Penthesilea. For, had the warrior woman not first killed one of her own, she would not have been compelled to find redemption in battle against the Greeks. Perhaps, she would instead have died somewhere on her native steppes, unremembered. Such a death – our loss, as well as that of Penthesilea and her people – would have been sad, indeed. Her name would have then been forever lost to time and anonymity. That ancient name conveyed some connotation of sadness:  penthos  meant “sorrow” in Ancient Greek. The second syllable of the warrior queen’s name is not so easy to decipher. Maybe, it came from the Latin verb for “silence”:  sileo . Or perhaps it was some Scythian derivative of
Read more