HELLENIC HORSEMEN 115 



tain valleys where there are clouds for 

 shelter. 



The Hellenic Horsemen. While the Baltic 

 region itself was still sub-arctic, perhaps with no 

 horse-stock as yet much better than Celtic 

 ponies, the oak woods of the Danube valley 

 were breeding sturdy Dapples, while the 

 Tartar hordes with each invasion scattered 

 Duns as far as central France. Even the 

 white horse of the Southern steppes, rare and 

 held sacred by the Northern people, was known 

 in Central Europe. So when the fair Achaeans 

 came to Greece they brought not Celtic ponies 

 but Duns, and a few Dapples picked up upon 

 their journeys. 



In the sagas of the Northmen as in the 

 legends of Achaean Greece the blue-eyed, 

 ruddy, tawny hero makes love or war to wor- 

 ship a fair woman. The vein is epic, but there 

 is a difference of mood ; for in the North its 

 atmosphere is one of gloom and terror shadowed 

 by awful Fate, but in the south of sunny 

 splendour, gallantry, and joy. The theme of 

 the winged horse has its weird Valkyrs riding 

 to find the slain through battlefields at night, 

 and its gay flying Pegasus in the Sahara, who 

 will not be caught save with a golden bridle 

 made by magic. 



