136 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



slip or stumble. It may in addition have been a 

 clever fencer, for we read that the knight "rode 

 with reckless daring at many obstacles " when 

 mounted on his favourite steed. 



In at least one work of fiction the Chevalier 

 Bayard has been rather amusingly confounded 

 with the mythological steed of the four sons 

 of Aymon that bore the name Bayard and that 

 used so conveniently to grow larger when more 

 than one of the four sons wanted to mount it at 

 the same time. The name is said to signify the 

 colour of bright bay, and the legend still obtains 

 that a hoof mark of this mythical horse remains 

 to this day in the forest of Soignes, while another 

 of its hoof marks may be seen on a rock near 

 Dinant. It was of this horse that Sir Walter 

 Scott wrote in The Lady of the Lake the 

 following lines : 



" Stand, Bayard, stand ! The steed obeyed 

 With arching neck, and bended head, 

 And glaring eye and quivering ear, 

 As if he loved his lord to hear." 



The Earl of Warwick's coal-black charger, Black 

 Saladin, is eulogised in almost every history of 

 the Wars of the Roses ; yet, when all is said, 

 Black Saladin does not appear to have done any- 

 thing sufficiently remarkable to have justified his 

 earning the immortal reputation that he un- 

 doubtedly has obtained. A big, powerful animal, 



