By the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath. 



21 



Album Equum, Pnebendalis (in the Inst. Wilton) . In 1367 appears 

 Kingston in le Vale de Whitekorse (Inst. p.m.). And in 1368 or 

 1309 in the close rolls of Edward III., a notice that " Gerard de 

 V Isle tient en la vale de White Horse 1 fee, &c." 



Such are all the references to the Uffington Horse which I have 

 been able to discover. I may add that Leland does not speak of it 

 at all, and all that Camden tells us is to mention the valley, 

 u which/' he says, " I wotte not from what shape of a white 

 horse imagined to appeare in a whitish chalky hill, they terme " The 

 Vale of White Horse/' 



I give two sketches of this horse, one of which is an enlarged 

 copy of the representation given in Hughes's Scouring of the White 

 Horse, and the other an also enlarged copy of a sketch given by 

 Mr. Christopher Edmonds, of Bishopstone, in 1835. [The latter 

 only is given here, see Eig. 1.] For the sake of clearness 1 show 

 the whole area of the horse as white, but without desiring thereby 

 to express any opinion as to whether such was its original condition,as 

 some archaeologists suppose, or whether as according to others, it was 

 marked out simply in outline by a trench. A comparison between 

 these two sketches will show that if the earlier artist is to be relied 

 upon, the figure has been subjected even since his time to some quite 

 appreciable modifications. I doubt not, however, but that the main 

 features have been faithfully preserved, and in proof of this I will 

 call your attention to an enlarged sketch of a coin of Bodno, the 

 wife of Prassitagus, King of the Iceni, (see Eig. 6) which I have 

 copied from Speed's Histories of Great Britain, p. 176, in which you 

 will observe exactly the same extraordinary shape of head, or beak, 

 which would appear to point to an approximately contemporary 

 origin. And here the question arises as to whether this wonderful 

 head is simply the result of rude iconographic power, or whether 

 there is a meaning in it . I am inclined to think the latter, and that 

 it really points to an epithet which is applied to the horses of 

 Ceridwen, the Druidical Ceres, in several poems of Taliesin, 

 preserved in the Myvyrian Archaeology : " Hen headed steeds." 

 Ceridwen is herself indeed reported to have assumed the form of a 

 white mare, and Mr. Davies, in his Druidical Mythology, refers to 



