16 



On the White Horses of Wiltshire. 



A year and a day the steed must stray 

 Wherever chanoe may guide his way, 

 Before he fall at Seeva's shrine. 

 The year and day have passed away, 

 Nor touch ot man hath marred the rite divine." — § viii. 



(See also Halhed's Darul Shekuh, and Wilford's Asiatic Re- 

 searches.) 



I cannot resist the temptation to quote here a note appended to 

 this description in my edition of Southey. " Compare with this/' 

 says the editor, " the account of the Bengal horses in the very 

 amusing work of Captain Williamson — f which said horses have 

 Roman noses, narrow foreheads, white eyes, ugly ears, square heads, 

 thin necks, narrow chests, shallow girths, lank bellies, cat hams, 

 goose flanks, and switch tails ! ' 33 



Let us hope that no one will be unkind enough to apply this 

 description to any of our White Horses ; although indeed beauty 

 does not seem to have been one of the characteristics by which the 

 fabled horses of our ancestors were distinguished. For in an old 

 poem of the 6th century called " the Talisman of Cunobeline/'' 

 the name of the sacred horses is " Trycethin.'" And " cethin " 

 means " the hideous one/' 



Leaving however now this introductory branch of the subject, we 

 must proceed to consider the White Horses in somewhat of detail. 



And first, the Great Uffington sire and prototype of all of them 

 will of course claim our attention. 



Now the earliest mention of this horse which I have been able to 

 discover, occurs in a Cartulary of the Abbey of Abingdon, which 

 must have been written either in the reign of Henry II., or soon 

 after. This runs as follows : — 



" Consuetudinis apud Anglos tunc erat, ut monachi qui vellent, pecuniarum 

 patrimoniorumque forent susceptibiles, ipsisque fruentes quomodo placueret 

 dispensarent. Unde et in Abbendonia duo, Leofricus et Godericus Cild appellati, 

 quorum unus, Godericus, Spersholt, juxta locum qui vulgo Mons Albi Equi 

 nuncupatur, alter Leofricus Hwitceorce super flumen Tamisie maneria sita 



patrimoniali jure abtinebant dom no Adelelmo abbati dominatum 



locihujus obtinente." Cottonian MSS., Claud, c. ix.,/o/. 132. 



[It was then customary among the English for any monks who 



