THE HORSE AS AN EPIC CHARACTER 



people is on the whole sober and pedestrian, they are 

 little more than very intelligent, sensitive, high-spirited 

 animals; where there are no fixed, well-defined bound- 

 aries between the natural and supernatural worlds, 

 they are marvellous, protean creatures like their semi- 

 divine masters. 



That the horse plays an important part in mythology 

 and folklore has been clearly shown by Jahns, De 

 Gubematis, von Negelein, Freytag, and others: it is 

 my purpose to call attention to the fact that his r61e in 

 the popular epic is equally conspicuous. Bangert, in 

 his monograph on animals in the chansons de geste^ has 

 devoted considerable space to the different horses 

 appearing in those poems. But the possible field is 

 much wider. It includes practically all the epic litera- 

 ture of Europe and Asia. 



Now, in this immense body of narrative matter there 

 is no reason why the horse should not be a prominent 

 actor. Inanimate things, like weapons, for instance, 

 often have names, a certain individuality and history. 

 Why not, then, an animate being as intelligent as the 

 horse ? Remember that he is the hero's closest com- 

 panion. In the thick of the fray, on long solitary 

 expeditions, he is always with him, when friends, kins- 

 men, and king are distant. Again, while it may be true 

 that there is not so much of the supernatural in the 

 epic as in the romance, still the supernatural is there. 

 However faithful to fact the nucleus of any given epic 

 may have been, the poem as we have it usually owes no 



