THE WILD HORSE. 



with a large head and bristly mouth, small, pale, 

 often blue eyes, a haggard and abundant mane and 

 tail, which, according to Cardanus, when rubbed in 

 the night, emitted sparks of fire; the hips were 

 high, the legs nodose, and the feet broad, flat, and 

 hidden in an immense quantity of long bristly hairs 

 about the fetlocks : this form of horse may have ex- 

 tended northward as far as the Hartz, for there, as 

 in the Netherlands, we hear of traditions and legen- 

 dary tales where the electrical phenomenon first 

 mentioned, and the pale eyes, are evident ingredients 

 of superstition to connect it with apparitions, de- 

 mons, wizards, and Pagan divinities. It may, 

 indeed, have been a feral branch, only in part wild, 

 and introduced with the first Gallo-Belgic colony 

 that ascended the Danube ; for the black-coloured 

 horse occurs in Egyptian pictures, was evidently 

 known to the Romans and Greeks at an early period, 

 and was figured as Pluto's team : * if this suppo- 

 sition could be substantiated, it would in some 

 measure show the original location and route of the 

 Centomannic Celts and true Gauls ; it would also 

 indicate the black race of Transouralian origin, with 

 the more probability, because melanism in horses is 

 unknown among the bay breeds, and where it is 

 intermixed, shows a tendency to obliteration. 



* The black demon-horse of the West appears to have been 

 called a Baiert : Theodoric, carried off by one, shows its anti- 

 quity. The -wizard Scott's, and the horse Pardolo of Spanish 

 legends, is of Gothic origin. I think there are similar allusions 

 to black horses in Tahtar tales. 



