PEAT-MOSSES AND THEIR CONTENTS. 209 



the Museum of Natural History of Copenhagen, who pro- 

 nounced them to have been the remains of three stallions of 

 middle size. But the strangest thing is, that the skulls 

 show the marks of heavy sword-cuts, which we are told 

 could not have been inflicted while the animal was alive. 

 Other portions showed that the horses had been pierced 

 with arrows and javelins, while some of the bones had 

 been gnawed by wolves or large dogs. There is here clearly 

 something more than the mere death of the horse in bat- 

 tle. The enemy in such a case would never have taken the 

 trouble to hew away at the skull, ' lying,' we are told, ' on 

 the ground before him,' and that. Professor Steenstrap is 

 inclined to think, when the lower jaw had been separated 

 from the upper, and when the bones were no longer covered 

 with flesh. All this leads us irresistibly to think of some 

 sacrificial ceremony, and of the famous proscription of 

 horse-flesh by the Christian missionaries. Horse-flesh must 

 have been held to be an unchristian diet only because it 

 was in some way connected with the idolatrous worship of 

 the Northmen ; the Mosaic prohibition could not have 

 been urged by men who doubtless ate hogs, hares, and 

 eels, without scruple. But then Professor Steenstrap tells 

 us, that no ^ such marks have been discovered on the horse- 

 bones from Nydam as could indicate a severance of the 

 limbs, or that the flesh had been eaten." ' These appear to 

 have been war-horses, and possibly at this time shoes may 

 not have been worn at all frequently. We have seen that 

 in France and Germany, long after shoeing was known, it 

 was not universally practised. 



' Denmark in the Early Iron Age, by Conrad Engelheart. — Satur- 

 day Review, Oct. 13, 1866. 



H 



