214 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



In Ireland, possibly also in parts of England, 

 a horse with what is called to-day a u wall " eye 

 was looked upon as a harbinger of evil, and 

 deemed likely to bring bad luck, especially upon 

 the family and relatives of the man who owned 

 it ; while any man so " ill-advised" as to breed a 

 fearsome creature of this kind often was after- 

 wards glanced at askance by persons who before 

 he had numbered amongst his friends. 



Then there existed also a superstitious belief 

 in connection with a horse with a white hoof, but 

 what this particular superstition was I have not 

 been able to discover. Apparently the owner of 

 a horse so marked was glad enough to get rid of 

 it for a sum much below its true worth, and gener- 

 ally he deemed himself fortunate if able to sell 

 such a horse at all. 



An instance is on record of a weakly foal being 

 left out all night in a snowstorm as a superstitious 

 test. We are told that it died of exposure, and 

 that its owner at once thanked God for His 

 mercy in having taken from him a creature born 

 with an evil spirit, the inference being that but 

 for the alleged evil spirit the little foal would 

 have been able to withstand the rigour of the 

 blizzard and the intense cold. 



Stolen horses in particular were believed to 

 possess a supernatural power that would enable 

 them to find their way home to their rightful 

 masters if they succeeded in escaping from the 



