By the Rev. W. C. Plenderleatk. 19 



our Saxon Ancestors, that * a Good Horse was never of a bad Colour/ 

 and mig-ht I be worthy to interpose my private Opinion^ the Horse 

 we are now upon happens to be a white one only because his native 

 soil abounds with Chalk or a sort of Limestone. Just as that other 

 Nag of Renown, from whom the vale of Red Horse is denominated, 

 happens to be red only because he is cut in a ruddy Soil/^ This, I 

 may observe, is a hit at a passage in Mr. Wise's letter, in which he 

 quotes a statement from Kranzius, that " Witichind, upon his con- 

 version from the darkness of Paganism, was the first who took the 

 white colt for his device, in allusion to the brightness of Christianity, 

 having till that time used a black one.'' This black horse would I 

 suppose be the " Pybyr Llai Llwynim " of Druidical tradition, " The 

 horse of the gloom of the grove." See Myvyrian Archseol., vol. ii., 

 p. 20. "Which things put me in mind of a certain learned 

 Academick, who much admiring that his Horse being turned out in 

 the Snow, should roll in it, was very gravely told it was ' because he 

 had nowhere else to roll.' In a word whoever will have such sort 

 of Horse must be content with such sort of Colour as the Country 



affords, however he may blazon his own Arms I may 



venture to hold him {i.e., Dr. Wise) a small Wager, that should the 

 Horse scape a Scouring but two Seven Years more, his Dapple would 

 become a Green one ; which would be a still greater Rarity for all 

 true Lovers of Antiquity." 



To this pamphlet an anonymous answer of no great interest was 

 published in London the following year, and then the matter appears 

 to have been allowed to rest until revived by a letter by Mr. W. J. 

 Thorns to the Society of Antiquaries (Archasologia xxxi., p. 289), 

 in which he expresses his belief that this horse was simply a 

 memorial of the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity .taking the 

 form of one of the White Horses which used formerly to be preserved 

 in their sacred ash groves. " The extensive downs," he says, "near 

 which the White Horse is found were formerly remarkable for ash 

 groves. The memory of this is preserved in the parish of Ashbury 

 (anciently Ashdown), and Letcomb Ashes. And the ash tree was 

 formerly held sacred, as being ' the tree under which the Gods sat 

 in judgment,' and ' the tree from which man was formed.' " And 



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