82 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



Generally a cloth or numner was worn beneath 

 saddles, but it is known that at one time Roman 

 horses suffered from sore backs owing probably 

 to the way the Roman soldiers sat their horses 

 when saddles first came into vogue. Soon after 

 this it was that the saddle came to be known as 

 "the chair," presumably because of the Latin 

 word sella, from which we have the French noun, 

 selle, meaning saddle. 



Some famous horses are referred to in the re- 

 cords of the sixth century, but little is said of 

 their history. Thus we have the Persian steed 

 of Chosroes, called Shibdiz, a name signifying 

 "fleeter than the wind." Apparently he was a 

 famous charger, for we read that he carried his 

 master safely through several important engage- 

 ments. Yet he was used for other purposes. 



The story of King Arthur is so closely bound 

 up with fable and fiction that the truth is difficult 

 to get at. He must have owned many good 

 horses, however, of which Spumador — a word 

 signifying "the foaming one" — and the mare 

 Lamri were perhaps the most renowned. There 

 are, nevertheless, historians who maintain that 

 these horses never actually existed. 



Sir Tristram's charger, Passe Brewell, men- 

 tioned in the " History of King Arthur," and 

 elsewhere, is another animal around which "a 

 web of imaginative description," as one writer 

 terms it has been woven. Consequently we shall 



