Chapter X: The Cult of the Horse (2)

We retrace our steps a little. Evidence seems to show that when the early Palaeolithic cave-men hunted the horse, they were accustomed to carry into their shelters only the fleshy parts of the carcass, together with the head of the animal, and--for ornamental purposes--the valuable tail. The long bones, which were crushed to obtain the marrow, do not appear, as a rule, to have been taken into the caves[1203]. Light may be cast on the anomalous separation of flesh and bones by a study of ancient Egyptian custom as described by Herodotus. This writer states that imprecations were heaped on the head of the sacrificial victim, so that any impending evil might fall thereon; the Egyptians, in consequence, would never eat the head of any animal[1204]. Strict taboo, as imposed among common folk, is not inconsistent with ceremonial eating by privileged individuals, and numerous instances might be given in support of this antinomy of custom. Merely as a speculation, it might be suggested that the head of the victim was at one time a delicate morsel reserved for the chieftain. In the caves of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, the skull does not seem to be of common occurrence, but in the early historic period, as shown by folklore, we catch echoes of its legendary repute. Tacitus relates that the ancient German tribes hung the heads of animals on trees as offerings to Odin. In Teutonic fairy tales, the horse’s head works miracles, especially when played upon as an instrument[1205]. It was thrown by witches into the Midsummer fire[1206]--a notable collocation of details. Russian magic teaches that ambrosia comes out of a horse’s head, and enables its possessor to do deeds of prowess. By virtue of this ambrosia one hero discomfited ninety-nine hostile monsters[1207]. In parts of Germany, horses’ heads were buried in stables; in Holland, they were hung over pigstyes; in Mecklenburg, they were placed under a sick man’s pillow[1208]. Again, in Lower Saxony, horses’ heads, projecting outwards, were carved on the gables of buildings, ostensibly for ornament, but in reality, it is probable, to prevent mischief to the horses kept within. A similar practice was observed by the builders of the older houses in Rhaetia[1209]. In modern Norway, the handles of bowls, and the ends of the wooden lever by which the primitive mangles are worked, are often formed of carved horse-heads. Numerous examples may be seen in the Horniman Museum, London. Specimens are said to have been met with in English houses also. Some authorities considered that the figures represented a Celtic legacy, but Grimm claims that the custom of carving these images, like that of horse-worship generally, belongs “equally to Celts, Teutons, and Slavs[1210].” The domain might be much extended. Even in our own day (1865), such carvings as those described have been recorded from Jutland. They were once common, it is stated, in Sussex, and Miss M. Braitmaier has figured a series of modern gable ornaments from different parts of Germany[1211]. When someone asked the meaning of the horses’ heads on the Jutish gables, the natives answered, “Oh, they are Hengist and Horsa[1212].” (Note that the name Hengist = a stallion, and Horsa = a mare.) Whether or not Hengist and Horsa were historical personages may be left in abeyance, the fact remains that they were sometimes represented by horses’ heads carried in front of the army as tutelary deities.

In certain parts of England, notably in Kent, there still survives the custom of a group of men going round at Christmas carrying a horse’s head, crudely carved in wood, and known as the “hoodening horse.” Sometimes, it would appear, a skull long buried in the soil, and afterwards dug up by chance, formed the “wooser,” “wooset,” or “husset[1213].” Mr P. Maylam, who has carefully collated the records of analogous customs from both England and Germany, considers that the word “hoodening” is not, as popularly supposed, derived either from the Norse word Odin or the Low German form Woden. He prefers to connect it with those old performances in which the hobby horse and characters representing Robin Hood and Maid Marian were prominent. A writer in the _Athenaeum_ ridicules this idea, and prosaically refers the name to the hood or sack which concealed the supposed body of the horse--really the body of the hoodener, or performer[1214]. Yes, but why should the horse, hooded or otherwise, enter into the ceremonies at all? It is easy to deride the early school, of which Grimm is a representative, as old-fashioned and full of extravagances. But we have to face a series of converging customs, which were not begotten of a complex society like that of modern or even Mediaeval England. Only by an appeal to some primitive form of the horse cult can an ultimate solution be really obtained.

Standing in close relationship to the “hoodening horse” custom, is a somewhat weird Welsh practice, which is now nearly extinct, but which some enthusiasts have lately attempted to revive. A horse’s skull is dressed up and carried about by a performer who is enveloped in a cloak. He makes the jaws of the skull snap to the accompaniment of Welsh rhymes. Houses are visited, and largesse is demanded. The performance, known colloquially as Mari Lwyd, is traced by some to pre-Reformation usage. But doubtless, it goes back, like the “hoodening horse,” of which, perhaps, it is a mere variant, to pagan times[1215].

Virgil relates a curious tradition which bears on our subject. As the Carthaginians were digging near a venerable wood, they dug up a horse’s skull--a “courser’s head,” as the phrase runs in Dryden’s translation, and this discovery was accounted such a prosperous omen that a temple was raised to Juno on that spot[1216]. Professor Conington, garnering his knowledge from several classical writers, gives us the additional information that the head of an ox was first lighted upon, and that this was thought to portend servitude, but after further excavation, the horse’s head appeared--an earnest of plenty, combined with success in war[1217]. From Vishnu mythology comes a contradictory item, for, in that system, the mouth of hell is conceived as a huge horse head[1218].

Before quitting this department of folk-lore, we may scan the wider field of skull superstitions in general. A fox’s head, nailed to a Scotch stable door, was supposed to keep off the dreaded witch. I noticed an instance of this custom at Rottingdean, near Brighton, in 1908, but cannot be sure that any significance was attached to the fox’s head[1219]. Why, again, does the gamekeeper suspend rows of weasels, stoats, cats, magpies, and jays on his gibbet? Certainly he does this, in the first place, to prove his zealous stewardship, and perhaps with some dimly conscious belief that similar “evil-doers” will take warning. But from observation of other curious practices, scarcely to be discussed here, one suspects that the origin was ceremonial. We must also remember cases like that described by Mr Baring-Gould, who once saw, hanging on a magnificent elm at Westmeston, under Ditchling Beacon, in Sussex, the carcasses of two horses and three calves. The reason offered for this custom was that the suspension of the bodies was lucky for cattle. Keeping, however, to a consideration of heads, we notice that Sir G. L. Gomme records a peculiar instance from Hornchurch, in Essex, where the lessee of the tithes used to pay, as a Christmas tribute, a boar’s head. This payment could not depend upon the intrinsic value of the toll, nor could the destruction of a single boar be counted meritorious in itself. The tribute was obviously symbolical. Camden relates that a stag was formerly paid as part of the rent of Church lands situated in Essex. He adds that, when he was a boy, namely, in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, the priests of St Paul’s Cathedral were accustomed to meet the stag as it was brought up the steps of the sacred building. The animal’s head was then carried on a spear round the cathedral, which echoed meanwhile to the sound of horns. Of this curious ceremony, the young antiquary was an eye-witness[1220].

From a review of these facts, we may deduce that the head of a slaughtered animal bore an imputed sanctity. This was essentially the case when the animal had been offered in sacrifice, and it is to pagan and prehistoric ritual that we must look for an interpretation of the facts. The species of animal esteemed most sacred would vary with the time and the place--here, the horse, there, the ox. Later days brought other competitors for the position of honour. Only by keeping well in mind the widespread belief in the efficacy of skulls, are we enabled to understand another series of records, which we now proceed to summarize.

More than half a century ago, when the chancel of St Botolph’s church, Boston, was being rebuilt, a quantity of horses’ bones and the jaw-bones of sheep were found under the floor[1221]. Again, we have seen that, on the site of the present St Paul’s Cathedral, a deposit of bones of oxen and other animals was discovered indicating a pagan site[1222] (cf. p. 83 _supra_). Secular buildings have also yielded horse remains. In 1895, when Colonel Stanley Scott was taking up the ground floor of a house in North Devon, he discovered, laid in order and well preserved, the skulls of eight horses and ten bullocks[1223]. In Wharfedale, again, under the floor of a house, probably from two to three hundred years old, the workmen took up the skulls of seven horses and a cow[1224]. With these discoveries one naturally associates the Dutch and German customs already mentioned (p. 440 _supra_). And, of course, the primitive idea must be connected with that which underlies foundation sacrifices, although complication arises from the unique merit attached to skulls. The foundation sacrifice is widely prevalent, but the burial of skulls is a more specialized custom.

It will be noticed that, of the last two examples, one is recent, and the other comparatively recent, therefore any folk-memory associated with the deposition of the skulls was probably defective. According to popular belief in Ireland, the skulls which are nowadays placed under buildings are intended to “cause an echo.” Just as a public building has, or has not, a horses skull buried beneath it, so will it be good or bad for the purpose of hearing. A certain field which possessed a good echo was commonly believed to have a horse interred in it; the tradition was sound, but it is not known whether the horse was buried for that purpose[1225]. Why, it may be pertinently asked, does a field need a good echo?

On broad grounds, it is sufficiently obvious that the sacrificial idea preceded the economic, yet there must have been a period of overlapping. For not only was some variation of the custom observed, as we shall see, by Mediaeval church builders, but the practice was kept up until our own days. Noticeably has this been the case in the Scottish Presbyterian Church[1226]. When the old Bristol Street meeting-house, in Edinburgh, was being demolished a century ago, eight horse skulls were found concealed in the sounding-board of the pulpit[1227]. Less than half a century back, the same class of object was put under an organ in a parish church in the province of Munster to increase the effect of the music[1228].

The modern theory of the acoustic purpose of the skulls fades as we trace the custom to more remote times. A small chamber in the belfry of Elsdon church, Northumberland, appeared to have been built specially to contain three horse skulls, which had lain piled against each other for hundreds of years[1229]. The masons of old time doubtless imagined that the skulls would make the tones of the bells more resonant, but, “lulled in the countless chambers of the brain” there must have been almost-forgotten memories of these traditional talismans. These sacred and oracular heads, there can be little question, were built into heathen temples before the dawn of history, and the habit was passed on from one generation to another[1230]. Does this theory seem far-fetched? Consider the conditions at Elsdon. Here is a district teeming with earthworks and other British and Roman remains. The population is scanty, the moorland wild and pathless; there was, until recently, little inter-communication among the scattered folk. Hereditary custom held firm sway. Such was the preference for burial in Elsdon churchyard, that corpses were carried many miles over the moors for interment. Yet pagan customs were rife. Well-worship was carried on here until our own times, and not many decades have passed since cattle were driven through the Midsummer bonfires to ward off disease. How much stronger was superstition when the village church of Elsdon was first built! There must have been dark, undisturbed depths of paganism in the lives of the countryfolk. We really know little of the true beliefs of the Mediaeval peasant, as recorded by himself. Even our information about the faiths held by the official classes, though somewhat exiguous, reveals a basis of gross superstition. The gap between the twentieth century and the sixteenth is almost immeasurable as compared with that between the sixteenth century and the Neolithic period.

Let us halt, to draw a comparison from Brittany. Who, in the absence of direct evidence, would have imagined that, in our own generation, a people, nominally Christian, could have been found to set out dishes of cream for the dead on All Souls’ Eve, to employ grave-earth for the cure of fevers, to pour out milk on tombs as a libation, to anoint menhirs with oil and honey, to scatter the ashes of the festival fires over the fields to ensure a fat harvest? Yet all these customs have been practised by the Bretons in recent times. Well-worship, the blessing of oxen at Carnac, the ghastly reverence paid to images personifying Death, and all such rites, we pass by, as being everywhere somewhat persistent. The parallel which I wish to draw is between the Mediaeval Englishman and the more modern Breton. Could we turn back and thoroughly understand the pages of history, I am convinced that even the seventeenth century peasant of the English Cornwall, for example, would be found quite as superstitious as the nineteenth century peasant of the French Cornwall. What is true of Cornwall, holds good for the Highlands of Scotland, for Ireland and Wales, and, in a lesser degree, for the whole of rural England.

To return: the acoustic idea had its birth so far back as Roman times at least, though at that period it was associated with the use of sounding jars. Probably horse skulls were still buried sacrificially, but the purpose was being forgotten. The belief in the efficacy of horse skulls as reverberators seems to have been derived from the employment of these jars, at a rather later time when the sacramental idea concerning skulls was obsolete. About the jars themselves there has been a vast controversy, which, even at the risk of being discursive, we must briefly notice.

To take a Roman example first: along the seats of the Coliseum there was a peculiar arrangement of horizontal pots, which Sir E. Beckett (Lord Grimthorpe) believed were intended to augment the sound. As a result of experiment, this authority found that the vessels acted much in the same way as would a series of short, wide tubes, if presented to a hemispherical bell when this was struck[1231]. Vitruvius mentions brazen vessels, perhaps comparable to the gong or kettle-drum, as being in use in Roman theatres. Some writers have thought that the purpose was to make the voices of the actors more distinct, others consider that the vessels were accessories in the imitation of thunder.

Coming to Mediaeval times, we find that the church of the Celestins at Metz was furnished (A.D. 1439) with jars, expressly to improve the chanting, but it is affirmed that experience showed them to be useless. Mr Gordon M. Hills, in a valuable paper on this subject, says that the jars were “a great disfigurement to the building, the marvel of all beholders, and the jest of fools[1232].” There are other Continental records of acoustic jars from Strasburg, Angers, Paris, and other places. L’Abbé Cochet discovered numerous specimens in the churches of Upper Normandy, together with “cornets” of baked earth in the church of St Blaise, at Arles. Illustrations of some of these are given in Cochet’s paper in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_[1233], and the statement is made that similar “cornets” are found in the interior walls and vaults of many churches in Sweden, Denmark, and Russia[1234]. Didron, after referring to specimens from the two first-named countries, and to those discovered at Arles and Metz, decides against the acoustic hypothesis: “_Ce mode [d’acoustique] me semblait aussi puéril qu’inefficace_[1235].” And, seeing that the men of the Middle Ages made bells and organs so commonly, why, he asks, are not the sounding “poteries” of more frequent occurrence[1236]?

In England, notable finds of jars are on record, though the number of churches concerned is but a trivial percentage of the whole. At St Clement’s, Sandwich, the jars were built into the walls of the chancel, overlooking the altar[1237]. At Barkway, Hertfordshire, they were likewise embedded in the chancel wall, but on the floor level[1238]. They are also found in the thickness of the wall, a few inches below the floor level, as at Fountains Abbey, where they had been placed at the base of the old choir screen. The Fountains vases lay on their sides, and both in and around them there was an abundance of charcoal. The charcoal, it is conjectured, may have had no more mysterious origin than a fire which occurred at the Dissolution[1239]. Jars, supposed to be of Romano-British make, were found on the top of the chancel wall at East Harling, Norfolk; in each case the mouth of the jar faced the interior of the chancel. For a long time a coating of lath and plaster had concealed these curiosities[1240], and one is led to wonder whether other jars may not, even now, lie hidden elsewhere. The gables of Newington church, Kent, yielded three jars. Other records come from Fairwell (Staffs.), Denford (Northants.), St Peter’s Mancroft and St Peter-per-Mountergate in Norwich, Upton, near Newark, and from Youghal, in Ireland[1241]. But the greatest collection of all was uncovered at the village church of Leeds, near Maidstone, in 1878. Altogether, about fifty earthenware pots were revealed. They were found on the top of each wall of the nave, below the wall plate. The walls and oaken roof belonged to the fifteenth century. The best judges at first declared that the vessels were of Romano-British manufacture, and dated a thousand years earlier than the fabric. This would seem to indicate that a series of urns had been discovered in the neighbourhood, and pressed into service by the Mediaeval masons. Later expert opinion, however, declares that the jars, though possessing some Celtic characteristics, are of Mediaeval date. The bodies of the jars were cylindrical, and about 8 or 9 inches in diameter, while the mouths narrowed to 3 or 4 inches. The height averaged 10-12 inches. The bottom of each jar was convex and perforated. Mr Hills calls attention to some perplexing general considerations. The jars are of any form and every form, they are old and new, they are placed, as if at hazard, from the floor to the roof. He therefore concludes that the intentions were several, although he does not himself suggest any other purpose to supplement the acoustic theory[1242]. In such a matter as this, difference of purpose, variety in underlying belief, changeable custom according to locality, confused folk-memory and tradition, need cause the antiquary no surprise. The prime motive having vanished, the custom is bereft of its full meaning, and the course of development runs along divergent rather than parallel lines. Two other discoveries which seem to favour the acoustic theory may be given--those at Ashburton, in Devon (1838), and Luppitt, also in Devon (1880). The Ashburton jars (Fig. 88 A), though convex at the base, and exhibiting chevron ornament, are assigned not to the Late-Celtic period, but to the close of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century. The jars from Luppitt (Fig. 88 B) are comparable to those found at Leeds. They were apparently made especially for insertion in a wall, as they are flattened a little in one portion. They probably belong to the fifteenth century[1243].

This question of “acoustic jars” has been dilated upon because it seems to involve an indirect derivative of the skull superstition, and one is induced to outline the story, however roughly and tentatively. We start with a period when the horse cult is rife, and when solemnity is the note of the priest and soothsayer. At a later date, a horse, or among some peoples, an

A. Skittle-shaped specimen from Ashburton church, Devon. The jar is
grey, and highly burnt. _a_, _b_, are yellow bands, on which are
incised chevrons.

B. Small jar (6´´ × 4½´´) from Luppitt, Devonshire. It has some of
the characteristics of Celtic pottery, but probably belongs to the
fifteenth century.

_Jour. Archaeol. Assoc._ XXXVIII. p. 220. ]

ox, is slain and buried under the foundations of the pagan temple. By and by, the skull, representing the most mysterious and sacred part of the animal, is considered to be sufficient by itself. Instead of being uniformly hidden under the building, it is built into the wall or placed in a specially constructed recess. The depositories are not confined to one part of the building. At a later date, a purely practical interpretation is assigned to the skulls. Secular architects, or architects not versed in the mystic lore of their heathen fathers, become prone to substitute an urn or a jar for the skull. The early Christians, adapting, it may be, the old pagan site, and actuated either by necessity or diplomacy, at times prudently permit the old rite and custom. The two practices run side by side, but the motive is weak, and ultimately becomes debatable. Then springs up the explanation that skulls and jars alike are used to produce sonorous beauty, and on this our modern theory is based. Nevertheless, these perversions of the original purpose have not been everywhere co-eval; we have seen, for example, that the architects of the Coliseum had reached the structural stage of the idea, and evidently turned the principle to good account.

Folk-memory weakens according to the degree of civilization and in response to outside influences. As, on the one hand, the imperfectly hollow horse skull is supplanted by jars, vases, and urns; so, on the other, an ox-skull becomes a mere ornament on the frieze of a Roman Doric building. Again, certain builders, apparently misled by the earthenware vessels, and connecting them with traditions or actual experiences of urn-burial, employ a modification of such vessels as pure ornament. The story has several parts. The mingling of the symbolic and the utilitarian idea is difficult to unravel, hence there is room for much speculation, and need for some suspension of final judgement.