98 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



scholars to-day take interest in mythology, so I 

 shall refer only to some half-a-dozen of the many 

 horses of fable and of mythology whose names are 

 household words. 



Pegasus, the winged horse of Apollo and the 

 Muses, is perhaps the best known by repute. 

 The name of course is Greek, and means, more 

 or less, " one born near the ocean," and according 

 to the famous fable Perseus rode Pegasus when 

 rescuing Andromeda. 



Frequently in history we find a ship alluded to 

 as " Perseus' flying horse." Thus in the story of 

 the destruction of Troy, " Perseus conquered the 

 head of Medusa, and did make Pegase, the most 

 swift ship, which he always calls Perseus' flying 

 horse," while Shakespeare in Troilus and Cres- 

 sida speaks of " The strong-ribbed bark through 

 liquid mountains cut . . . like Perseus' horse." 



How Perseus beheaded Medusa, chief of the 

 Gorgons, and how everyone who afterwards 

 looked at the head with its hair turned into snakes 

 by the jealous goddess Minerva was then and 

 there transformed into stone is too well known 

 to need repetition at length here. 



Selene, the moon goddess, usually represented 

 in a chariot drawn by fiery white horses to 

 some extent this is inconsistent, seeing that from 

 time almost immemorial white horses have notori- 

 ously been the least fiery of any must be men- 

 tioned, for the famous cast or model of Selene's 



