Ill] 



AND HISTORIC TIMES 



121 



usually dun-coloured (Fig. 49^), those from remote districts, 

 such as the pony from Rodo (Fig. 48), being probably the 

 most typical representatives of those of earlier times, for it is 

 certain that the ordinary Norwegian ponies of to-day have been 

 much improved by superior blood from the south. The white 

 horses of Beowulf were in some respects probably well repre- 

 sented down to our own times by the white ponies of the 



Fig. 50. The last of the old Lofoden ponies (in its summer coat). 



Lofoden Isles, which became extinct in 1897. I figure here 

 (Fig. 50) the last of these in its summer coat from a photo- 

 graph taken before it was shot in order to be preserved in the 

 Bergen Museum. 



Gylfinnung gives the names of the gods' horses, which 

 were eleven in number: Heimdal's horse was Gulltoppr (' Gold- 

 topped,' i.e. golden-maned ?), whilst Odin's famous eight-legged 

 steed (Fig. 100) Sleipnir (the offspring of Loki when he turned 



1 From a photograph taken in 1904 by my friend Mr J. A. Venn, Trinity 

 College, Cambridge. 



