ᛖ byþ for eorlum æþelinga wyn.
hors hofum wlanc. ðær him hæleþ ymb.
welege on wicgum wrixlaþ spræce.
⁊ biþ unstyllum æfre frofur ᛬᛫
It is for warriors the joy of princes
A horse with bold hooves, the fighters there around him
The wealthy on steeds trading speech.
And it is for the uneasy ever a consolation.
There’s lots of words for horse in Old English, hors, for one. But there’s wicg, hengest, friþhengest, onrid, radhors, mearh, sceam, steda, stott, blanca, gelew, all words that mean specific types of horses by the style, sex, physical appearance, color. This was a horse culture. Horses were a very big deal. Why? They made life easier. Having a horse changes everything. They were useful for pulling stuff, not for ploughing though, they would use oxen for that, but they would use horses to bring goods to market and to haul just about anything anywhere, including themselves: in carts and on horseback. During their prime, horses were particularly indispensable for sending messages long distances. Speedy communication has always been desirable. Finally, literally, chop marks in their bones mean that sometimes horses were eaten, particularly after they’d reach five years of age. Even … More
How to change the world? Invent something, something important. Look at the stirrup: a metal rounded triangle you can attach to a saddle as a place to put your feet. Very simple, basic, but it is one of those culturally transformative technologies like the wheel and the printing press that changed everything about how people live and think and believe.
Why? You can ride a horse without a stirrup, yes, but you must work to maintain your balance or one good jostle and you will fall. You’ll want a bit of leverage to hold yourself on, especially when your intentions are warlike. Have you ever tried to shoot an arrow or drive a spear into somebody from horseback? You’ll need something stabilizing to push against or you will go flying. The right saddle can be everything, and innovations were made in this direction to solve the same problem. But with a stirrup, you and … More
During the time of the Rune Poem, a properly kitted warrior owned a decent war horse to take to battle. These were bigger horses than the usual so they could handle a person wearing heavy armor, and they could even bite and fight with their hooves. With the right war horse, you can be unstoppable. Almost. What can stop a war horse? Ice. Ice is brutal for horse hooves. It can ball up under their feet until they are teetering on their own personal ice cubes. Have you ever fallen on ice? That’s not a soft landing. A horse can easily slip and break a leg on the frozen dips and grooves in a road, and if they fall right through a frozen lake or river good luck getting them back out. Have fun with that. A war horse, large and powerful, formidable in battle, is handily defeated by ice.
Publius Cornelius Tacitus
Ingaevones Territory
Year 98 of the New Calendar
Gnaeus Julius Agricola
Governor, Britannia, ret.
Dearest Father in Law,
How are you, I am fine. Julia sends her love. I am still in Germania, moving in the direction of Gaul, separated from this place by rivers, mountains, and mutual dread. This is a land rude in its surface, rigorous in its climate, cheerless to every beholder and cultivator.
Today I observed the practice of conjuring, which one cannot avoid as no people are more addicted to divination by omens and lots. Of their methods, some are familiar and civilized for instance auguring from the sounds and flights of birds, others prove most unnatural, such as deriving admonitions and presages from horses. These are the omens they deem most important:
When a horse neighs, the people foresee a meeting or gathering, of which they sit to many, most often fully armed. If the … More
Saddle up, you’ve got a battle on your hands, and no wonder, you are feeling protective and as well you should. You’ve got plenty to protect. You are well equipped for this one, so be proud of that, and you can talk a good game too. Well, talk it up. Gather your people and exchange words about it. Don’t just chat at everybody though, listen and pay attention.
This is the rune for Eh, war horse, letter E. In the Cotton library manuscript called Galba A.ii (burned in a different fire from the one that got the Old English Rune Poem) the name of this rune is spelled eoh. In other manuscripts the name is spelled Eh as it is here, not with an EO at the start. There’s another rune for EO: ᛇ, spelled eoh like it’s a horse but it means a yew tree. This is the Rune Poem catching a vowel shift, from E to EO. This rune gets tangled up in ᛟ as well, Eþel, the rune for Œ. Notice that is not an Œ at the front of ᛟ’s name, it’s an E. ᛟ used to be œþel, but that sound shifted into E from what used to be mostly O sounds. Vowels are shapeshifters. The sound of this one makes us smile.
Carve … More
