80 THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS 



this "dcelehest" or valley horse, as Mr Leonhard Stejneger 

 calls it, from the interior of Norway, we probably owe the 

 characteristic horses of the Scottish uplands the Highland 

 "Garrons" (Fig. 1 8), which average between 14 and 15 hands 

 high, and are, according to Professor Robert Wallace, 



unequalled hill ponies for staying power at slow speed, sure-footedness, 

 and for carrying heavy loads of deer or smaller game on rough hillsides 

 and mountainous places, and bearing the sportsman to the shooting 

 ground. 



"WILD HORSES" IN HISTORIC TIMES 



There are several references in early Scottish litera- 

 ture to the presence of " wild horses " which existed in the 

 Highlands even to the early part of the seventeenth century. 

 Boece (1527) says of them (as translated by Bellenden) 

 " Beside Lochnes, quhilk is xxiv milis of lenth, and xii of 

 breid, ar mony wild hors," and in another place: 



In all the boundis of Scotland, except quhair continewall habitation of 

 peple makis impediment thairto, is gret plente of.. .wild hors...Thir wild 

 hors ar not tane but [except by] crafty slicht; for, in time of winter, the 

 landwart peple puttis certane tame cursouris and maris amang thir wild 

 hors; and, be thair commixtioun and frequent cumpanie makis thaim so 

 tame, that thay may be handileit. 



The Forest of Birse in Aberdeenshire, also sheltered a herd 

 of wild horses in 1 507 as the Records of the Sheriffdom of 

 Aberdeen (vol. I, pp. 106-7) show, and it is known that there 

 inhabited the hills of Sutherland till after 1545, a herd of 

 "wild meris, staigs and folis" which was established as 

 belonging in right to Sutherland of Duffus, when the Bishop 

 of Moray laid claim to the herd. Again as late as 1618, 

 Taylor the Water Poet alleges that he saw "wild horses," 

 along with "deere, wolves, and such like," in the " Brea of 

 Marr." 



Boece indicates that these "wild horses" were something 

 different from the ordinary "cursouris" of his time, and it 

 can be no rash step to assume that they were either native 

 ponies, or crosses between these and the Norse horses, which 

 in the unenclosed state of Scotland had, like representatives 

 of the Park or Fallow Deer (see p. 285), run free and become 

 established in the wilder districts. 



May it not also be that the many Highland traditions 

 of mythical yellow horses with bristling manes and flowing 



