PICTISH CAVALRY: THE HORSE IN STONE

Hilton of Cadboll Stone: The landward-facing, secular side of the cross-slab on location in Easter Ross. This is the replica by Barry Grove. The original uploader was the Deacon of Pndapetzim at English Wikipedia. Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1834024

Breeds:

            So, onward, to the Pictish horse breeds. But first, let’s get the questions out of the way.

§  Question: Isn’t surveying ancient stone carvings of horses a chancy method of sizing up horse breeds?

§  Answer: Maybe.

§  Question: Can we even tell what breed of horse the Picts preferred just by looking at the carvings?

§  Answer: Yes, we can.

§  Question: Weren’t ancient carvings just “facsimiles” of life? And aren’t they too eroded to make out much detail?

§  Answer: A resounding “no”!

§  Question: Didn’t the Picts just ride short, hairy beasts akin to the carnival ponies ridden by modern children?

§  Answer: Apparently not. Although many people, including scholars, have assumed that medieval horses were small, hairy beasts of burden like the modern Shetland pony, the earliest horse depicted on the Pictish stones appears to be much larger, although it is hard to judge a horse’s size from a stone carving.  From Hughson:

 

The earliest stone on which a horse is depicted is the Class I stone from Inverurie (See Fig. 1). It is a clean limbed, high stepping, well-proportioned animal, with a slightly dished face and a suggestion of flaring nostrils. The neck is arched and well crested, sloping toward muscled shoulders. The rump is rounded, and the tail carried out from the quarters…. This is no sluggish, hairy, cold-blooded equine… …Its whole appearance gives the lie to the idea that Dark Age horsemen rode about on “little, shaggy creatures like Exmoors or large Shetlands”. (Thomas 1971)

 

Other breeds are depicted on the later stones, sometimes differing within the same stone. The Migvie Stone depicts a “long-limbed horse on one side and a thick-set pony on the other”, while the Hilton of Cadboll Stone shows a Pictish lady sitting sidesaddle on a palfrey with an “upright head carriage, a long body and a high-set tail”. It seems probable that different breeds were used for different employments, just as they are today. So, although the Pictish mounts were not giant Clydesdales, nor the heavy, armored destriers of Medieval knights, neither were the only horses to be found in Pictland merely docile riding ponies or shaggy Shetlands.

 

The Bactrian Horse:

This is where it gets interesting…and specific. The lady’s mount on the Hilton of Cadboll Stone (see the photo above) resembles a breed called the Bactrian Horse. Remains of the Bactrian were found in the Scythian Pazyryk burials of the early first millennium BC. These horses were much desired by the Assyrians and the later Chinese. While three other breeds were also found frozen in the Pazyryk kurgan mounds, it is known that the Bactrian breed was brought by the Celtic Battle People from Eastern Europe through Western Europe and into the British Isles. This breed would, therefore, have been known to the Picts, perhaps presented to them as a highly desirable riding mount.

Again, I repeat for clarity: these horses were ridden by the Scyths. And apparently later, by the Picts. This is a direct, horsey link between the two cultures.


Meigle II Pictish Stone. By Simon Burchell - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7405285


Andalusian Horse:

Hughson points out the appearance of another breed on two of the Pictish stones: Meigle No. 4 and the Aberlemno Kirkyard stones. This is the Andalusian horse, bred from the North African Barb crossed with an Iberian breed. It has a “powerful neck” and “sloping quarters”.

The men mounted on these horses appear to be members of war parties, or at least hunting parties. If the horse was so “powerful” – and we have all seen photos and films featuring the graceful arching necks and high-stepping long limbs of the Andalusian horse – perhaps it was well-suited to sports like hunting and warfare, which require strength and stamina. It is likely that this breed was employed in pursuits more aggressive than pleasure parties or travel. If so, someone would have had to ensure that this quality remained paramount through the generations.

That someone would have been a Dark Age horse breeder…

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Hughson, Irene. “Pictish Horse Carvings.” Glasgow Archaeological Journal, vol. 17, no. 17, 1991, pp. 53–62., doi:10.3366/gas.1991.17.17.53.

Karunanithy, David. “War Dogs among the Early Irish.” History Ireland, 9 May 2013, www.historyireland.com/uncategorized/war-dogs-among-the-early-irish-2/.

Unknown, Wikipedia. “Hilton of Cadboll Stone.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Jan. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_of_Cadboll_Stone.

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


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