Discovery of Horse-heads. By Dr. E. C. Robertson. 615 



At tlie present time the horse-head has in eastern countries not 

 lost all its superstitious power. Tozer in 1879 writes, that the 

 skulls of horses may, in Asia Minor, be seen stuck up on poles in 

 the fields to avert the evil eye. 



"In olden times," writes Marryatt, "there was a strange cus- 

 tom in Zealand (Denmark), and may be elsewhere, of interring 

 a living horse in every church-yard, before any human being 

 could be buried there. This horse re-appears under the name 

 of the Hell-horse .... ill luck to the man who sees it, for 

 it foretells his own death." An entire skeleton of a horse was 

 found in 1842 in the Saxon cemetery of Marston, St. Lawrence, 

 Northampton. We here find the horse taking the place of the 

 human sacrifice, which was common in early times, to insure 

 the success of buildings, the human offering being built into the 

 wall alive. 



Beyond being a type of strength, beauty and activity, the 

 horse seems in early times, and in the East to have been consid- 

 ered an emblem of the Sun, that greatest and most beneficent 

 visible being in the universe and in itself a natural object of 

 worship to man. The Psalmist speaks of the sun as a " bride- 

 groom coming out of his chamber and rejoicing as a strong 

 man to run his race." Call the sun a Eacer (and he is so 

 named in several mythologies) and it brings at once before 

 us the idea of the horse. In fact the horse is constantly as- 

 sociated in mythology with the sun. Phaeton and the horses 

 of the sun are an example. In the minds of Yedic worship- 

 pers, the sun is associated with fire and is frequently repre- 

 sented sitting in a chariot, drawn by seven ruddy horses — the 

 seven days of the week. It is also to be seen represented as 

 borne on horseback. The sun in the heavens was in heathen 

 mythology itself a symbol of the resurrection— setting at night, 

 rising in the morning. The horse in time became from its 

 resemblance to the sun, a type or symbol of the resurrection. 

 The sun moved rapidly, so did the horse. The idea of the sun 

 as a being drawn in a chariot by horses was soon reached. Thus 

 we have Indra, the Sun-God, drawn by the Harits. One more 

 step ; the horses of the sun in the Veda are Arushi, and the Sun is 

 also Arushi, the terms thus being interchangeable. In two 

 chapters of Eevelations the horse is significant of victory, and 

 he that sat on the white horse had for name "King of Kings 

 and Lord of Lords." 



