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.

 

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