Horses as heroes

[altivo]

Baxter Black is someone we enjoy reading here, and listening to. I don't always agree with him, and sometimes he gets a bit on the sexist side for my taste, but often he cuts the chase and gets to the point once he gets in a laugh or two. Like most cowboy poets, his point is usually a sharp one. We subscribe to a newspaper from up in Wisconsin that sometimes carries his column, and the one that came today was good enough that I hunted up a copy on the web so I could point it out:

Horses are too good for "Giddy-up"

"Indians had dogs for millennia and never invented the wheel. Coronado gave them the horse and they became warriors. Ask any handicapped kid what it feels like to be a'horseback. Until the catapult, it was as close as man could come to flying. Muscles contract and explode beneath you sweeping you forward like an eagle over the surface of the earth.

"Without the horse the cowboy becomes a herder, Napoleon is infantry, and taxation without representation becomes the sport of kings. The horse is both masculine and feminine. What other animal can be said to prance?"

Comments

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

There's generally only one page of the AQHA member's monthly magazine I bother to read, and it's the last page, because the reprint a lot of horse quotes. I think it goes without saying that there is no other animal on the face of the Earth that mankind has formed a more complex, symbiotic relationship with, all it takes is thinking about it for a moment. Even the dog doesn't even come close. Sure, our relationships with our machines have largely supplanted the utility or necessity of horses in the daily lives of "civilized" populations, but such entrenched relationships won't just disappear overnight. It'll be a sad day for the human evolution when horses no longer capture our imaginations.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I love dogs, and in some situations and places, they have been as valuable to humans as the horse, but overall, I have to agree. Though only a few cultures have made housepets and bedmates of the horse (Arabs and Mongols come to mind, though I've sometimes wished...) almost all who have not been geographically isolated from equines have grown with them to the point of inseparability. Like Siamese twins, human and horse have come down through millennia as a symbiotic pair, grown together until we fit like old shoes or sometimes new gloves, and become dependent on one another.

I am profoundly disturbed by the way in which the machine has pushed the horse out of his place in the last century, but I also wonder if when we have finally run out of petroleum our horses will not come back into some semblance of their former importance. May Equus grant that they are still here when that happens.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Well...yeah.

*shrugs and agrees*

A good practice for your french ;)

[kildoo-lonewolf.livejournal.com]

Je ne sais pas si ceci est vrai aussi en anglais mais en français, la noblesse du cheval se traduit aussi dans la langue. Le cheval est le seul animal (à part l'homme) à avoir une bouche plutôt qu'une gueule. Le cheval n'a pas de pattes mais bien des pieds et des membres.
Le cheval est un animal qui est habituellement généreux et une fois que tu réussis à avoir sa confiance il te restera fidèle et te sera très indulgent. Monter un cheval c'est partager sa liberté, sa puissance et sa joie de vivre.
Je suis toujours étonné de voir autant de chevaux dans la publicité et utilisé pour promouvoir un si grand éventail de produits (cigarettes, automobiles, parfum, bières etc.) Je crois que s'il est encore si utilisé en publicité c'est qu'il a encore le potentiel de créer en nous toute une gamme d'émotions intenses.
Je me rappelle lorsque je travaillais dans une écurie de randonnée, nous avions reçu un groupe d'enfants Inuits. Ils n'avaient jamais vu de chevaux et de les voir approcher doucement et les caresser du bout des doigts tout comme si les chevaux allaient se briser comme du cristal. Je me rappelle leur émerveillement lorsque nous les avons fait monter et que nous sommes partis en randonnée. Cela a été une expérience unique pour moi, tout au long de la randonnée, les enfants sont restés silencieux, leurs yeux grand ouvert et la seule chose qu'ils ont fait tout le long de cette randonnée a été de gratter le cou de leur monture. Je suis sur qu'ils avaient compris bien avant moi combien le cheval est un animal fragile (autant physiquement que sentimentalement) et combien nous devrions lui être reconnaissant de tout ce qu'il partage volontiers avec nous.
Je crois que le lien qui a été établie entre le cheval et l'homme au cours des siècles transcende la simple relation de symbiose qui en est l'origine.
Il y a deux ans, alors que je travaillais encore à l'écurie, un pensionnaire est venu me montrer un article sur les vignobles de France qui paraissait dans une revue équine. Il y était dit que plusieurs vignerons français retournaient aux chevaux pour cueillir leur raisin car les roues des tracteurs compressaient trop les sols et diminuaient ainsi le rendement des vignes. J'ai asseyé en vain de retrouver l'article en question pour toi mais sans succès. Ceci étant dit, je ne crois pas que le cheval soit près de complètement disparaître de notre société de si tôt.

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rider,

That was a good read for a flying horse. Uh... and then there is Pegasus, which probably stems from the closeness the horse has with the wind. For a human over the centuries before trains and planes and autos riding a horse was the closest one could come to flying short of jumping off a cliff.

Oh, and we DO share a bed together in fantasy. Grin.

Imperator

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Mmm, yeah. *snuggles in next to you, as close as possible*

Actually, Pegasus appears to derive from pegos which is a fountain or spring in Greek and certainly fits your affinity for water. There are waterbirds and there are waterhorses, it seems.

Re: A good practice for your french ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Vraiment!

I had forgotten some of those special differences in the way we speak of the horse in French, and you're right. It's very interesting indeed.

I think that like twins who lie entwined in their mother's womb, we are bound to the horse by the way in which we have grown up together for so long. I am glad every day that I have horses right here to touch and speak with. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Tsk. You'd better agree or I'll send the horses to tromple your lawn or something. ;p

[kildoo-lonewolf.livejournal.com]

You are very fortunate indeed.

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

And then there are kelpies...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sorta the opposite kinda critter aren't they? I dunno if I could get enthused about stealing someone's skin and hiding it from them to keep them around. Though come to think of it, I've known one or two whose clothes I'd be willing to hide in order to keep them around. ;D