Jennifer Neville
Royal Holloway, London
Stalking a Dark Horse:
Anglo-Saxon Horses and the Date of Beowulf1
In October 1997, an Anglo-Saxon burial ground was found at the Eriswell Cemetery in
Suffolk.2 This site has been dated to approximately 550 AD and is notable for the horse buried
next to what is assumed, because of the presence of the horse and other artefacts, to be a highranking nobleman.3 This assumption is undoubtedly correct.4 However, whether the horse
communicated something more specific than prestige is less easy to determine. In fact,
interpreting Anglo-Saxon horses, whether in burial sites or poetic texts, requires data from a
vast range of disciplines if it is not to depend upon leaps of logic and faith; the horse buried
whole and Hrothgar’s gift of mearas…æppelfealuwe ‘dappled dun steeds’ (Beowulf 2163b and
2165a) are clearly meaningful, but the code is difficult to untangle.5
This is not to say that the ‘Dark Ages’ have shrouded the Anglo-Saxon horse in
impenetrable mystery. A great deal of useful work, drawing upon a wide range of sources
including poetic texts like Beowulf, has been done to untangle the development of the horse
through the Middle Ages.6 For the most part such work has used the horses in Beowulf to
contribute to an understanding of horses in the ‘real’ world. In this investigation, however, I
use the information available from other sources, including archaeology, law codes, wills,
chronicles, glossaries, colour semantics and art history, to contribute to an understanding of
Beowulf. Thus I first address the use of horses in Anglo-Saxon England, the types available
and how they were acquired. This context provides the basis for a re-examination of the horses
in Beowulf, which pays particular attention to the difficult colour-terms that describe the
horses used as both transport and treasure within the poem. The details, and, especially, the
omissions in the poet’s depiction of horses contrast strongly with the context provided in the
2
first part of this discussion. The contrast is particularly striking with respect to the horses
described in tenth and eleventh century wills. As a result, I suggest that Beowulf derives from a
date not later than the tenth century and that the depiction of horses within the poem would
have struck the eleventh century audience of the manuscript as extremely archaic.
THE HORSE IN RITUAL
Horses appear to have had a number of different functions in Anglo-Saxon England.
Archaeological discoveries, for example, suggest that horses may have played some role in the
Anglo-Saxons’ pre-Christian religious beliefs; there may even have been an Anglo-Saxon cult
of the horse,7 perhaps containing practices similar to those of the continental Germanic tribes
described by Tacitus. Tacitus suggests that the prominent role played by horses in augury was
characteristic of these tribes:
…proprium gentis equorum quoque praesagia ac monitus experiri. publice aluntur
isdem nemoribus ac lucis, candidi et nullo mortali opere contacti; quos pressos
sacro curru sacerdos ac rex vel princeps civitatis comitantur hinnitusque ac
fremitus observant. nec ulli auspicio maior fides, non solum apud plebem, sed apud
proceres, apud sacerdotes; se enim ministros deorum, illos conscios putant. (De
origine et situ Germanorum 10)8
There is, unfortunately, no evidence that the Anglo-Saxons actually practised augury in this
way. In fact, the burial at Eriswell contradicts many of the elements mentioned by Tacitus: not
only is there no sign of a ‘sacred chariot’ in the burial, but the equipment buried with the horse
indicates that the animal had participated in ‘worldly labour’ — that is, it had carried a human
burden. Thus, although the Anglo-Saxons might have maintained special horses untouched by
human service for augury, modern archaeology has not found any evidence of them. At the
same time, the horse burial that archaeologists can investigate cannot be considered
‘characteristic’ of the Anglo-Saxons: burials like the one at Eriswell do not appear to have
3
been common, although a similar one, dated to the sixth or seventh century AD, was found
under mound 17 at Sutton Hoo in 1991,9 and there are numerous instances, particularly at
Spong Hill, of the cremation of horses, as well as other animals.10 It may thus be possible to
assume some kind of ritual importance for horses in early Anglo-Saxon England, even if the
extant evidence does not confirm (or, indeed, disprove) the practices described by Tacitus.
‘Some kind of ritual importance’ does not provide much insight into the Anglo-Saxon
attitude toward horses, although it seems reasonable to infer first, that horses were valuable
property intended to reflect the status of those with whom they were buried and second, that
the buckets, food, equipment and horses buried at Eriswell and Sutton Hoo reflect a belief in
the need for such things in an afterlife. We can accept both these assumptions as reasonably
accurate albeit creative reconstructions,11 but we should remember that the Anglo-Saxons
themselves have left no documentary evidence to confirm the details of such beliefs:12 burying
food, weapons and horses may indeed indicate a belief in a warriors’ paradise like Valhalla,13
but they may also indicate something else. No explanation of the meaning of a buried horse,
whether whole, cremated, in pieces or decapitated, has survived.14 Beowulf, for example,
provides no hint of a ritual importance for horses: none of the high-status burials described in
the poem contains horses, and the Danes’ desperate resort to pagan practices does not include
the augury of horses, despite the apparent appropriateness of consulting well-respected
auspices as the leaders of the people
ræd eahtedon,
hwæt swiðferhðum selest wære
wið færgryrum to gefremmanne. (Beowulf 172b–4).15
4
CLASS MARKERS
In contrast with their potential but nebulous religious significance in the Anglo-Saxons’ preChristian history, horses maintained well-documented roles as treasures and means of transport
throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Yet they were, perhaps surprisingly, not crucial to AngloSaxon life. To a great extent, they were a luxury, not a necessity. Cows and oxen were more
economical and useful than horses: horses were not used for ploughing,16 were not used for
milking,17 were not a usual food source,18 cost more to buy19 and cost more to feed over the
winter.20 The horse’s relative uselessness thus rendered it an important indicator of wealth and
prestige, as the poor could not afford to maintain an animal which provided few essential
benefits for such a great cost. For the elite, on the other hand, the horse became increasingly
important, both as a marker of status and as a tactical component in war.
Horses could mark more than a single division between rich and poor, however; they
could indicate multiple, very particular gradations of wealth and prestige. At some point in
Anglo-Saxon England, a range of different kinds of horses arose, with different functions and
different levels of prestige attached to them. Thus there are terms to describe horses fit only to
pull carts (stot, crætehors),21 horses fit to carry luggage (ealfara, seamhors),22 horses fit to ride
(hors, radhors, hengest), horses fit for breeding (stodmyre, gestedhors, stodhors), horses fit for
kings and the nobility (friþhengest, steda, blanca, mearh, wicg) and perhaps even horses fit for
war (eoh).23 Some of these terms distinguish an even more exalted type of horse: the noble
accoutrement of heroic poetry, the blanca, mearh or wicg. Such terms do not mean that the
mounts of heroes were always white (blanca) nor that they were always mares: the Old English
word for ‘mare’ is miere, not mearh. Blanca, mearh and wicg are part of the special vocabulary
restricted to (and thus constitutive of) the elevated art of poetry.24 Old Norse literature, too,
recognises a hierarchy of horses, with some — blakkr (OE blanca) and jór (OE eoh), for
5
example — appearing almost exclusively in poetry and indicating horses fit for heroes and
gods.25
That there were living examples of distinct classes of horses underlying these vocabulary
items is supported by an entry in The Laws of the Dunsæte, which notes different levels of
compensation payable for a lost horse:
Hors man sceal gyldan mid XXX scillingum oððe be ðam ladian; myran mid XX
scillingum oððe be ðam, & wintersteal ealswa; wilde weorf mid XII scillingum....
(Laws of the Dunsæte 7)26
The meanings of both wintersteal and weorf are uncertain. Wintersteal might suggest a horse
kept in a stall over the winter, perhaps one of the equi in halla listed in Domesday Book,27 but
‘a year old stallion’ and ‘a yearling foal (?)’ have also been suggested.28 Weorf may indicate an
ass or a generic term for beasts of burden but here probably refers to untamed horses of low
quality destined to be pack animals.29 Regardless of their specific meanings, these terms
indicate distinctions and rankings which were in place by the tenth century.30 A century later,
Domesday Book records a similar number of distinctions: horses, rounceys, mares, unbroken
mares and forest mares.31 The fuller information provided by later texts makes the distinctions
between the different classes of horses even clearer. These classes included ‘affers’ (cheap
horses for pulling carts and harrowing), ‘sumpters’ (slightly more valuable animals used as
pack-horses), ‘rounceys’ (ordinary riding horses), ‘palfreys’ (horses for long-distance travel)
and ‘destriers’ (warhorses, too expensive even for most knights).32
HORSE BREEDING
The differences between these categories of horses were both obvious and difficult to achieve.
Left to their own devices, horses will take care of themselves, nourish themselves as best they
can and breed enough to sustain their population.33 There is evidence that the Anglo-Saxons
6
allowed some of their horses to do precisely that: although some horses may have been kept in
the vicinity of — if not housed in — the halla, Domesday Book also mentions equae silvestrae
‘forest-mares’ and equae indomitae ‘unbroken mares’, horses apparently allowed to roam and
breed relatively freely.34 This method of raising horses was inexpensive, but the resulting
population belonged to that category of horses fit only to pull carts — an ‘unimproved’ animal
not much different from the basic wild horse. Such a horse stands about eleven hands (110 cm)
high at the shoulder (approximately the size of a Shetland pony) 35 and can be characterised by
a basic colour: dun, which ranges from dull yellow to grey, often with a black mane and tail, a
dark stripe down the back (the ‘eel-back’36) and zebra striping on the legs,37 as exemplified by
the Tarpan and Przewalski’s Horse,38 types of horse thought to be closest to the original wild
horse from which all domesticated breeds descend.39 No true wild horses remain outside
captivity today.40 Although there may have been some genuine wild populations in the AngloSaxon period,41 most of the horses used by the Anglo-Saxons were probably not entirely
‘unimproved’ by human contact and interference in their breeding; the equae ‘mares’ may have
roamed relatively freely, but stallions apparently did not. The populations of feral horses still
surviving, for example, in the Camargue marshlands in France and in the New Forest and
Exmoor in England provide some indication of the appearance of the Anglo-Saxons’ wildu
weorf and equae silvestres:42 forest mares in thirteenth century Wales, for example, possessed
the same dun colouring displayed today by the Exmoor ponies.43 It has been argued that the
equae indomitae and equae silvestrae were, in fact, Exmoor ponies.44
Modern investigations into Przewalski’s Horse and current populations of feral horses
can thus offer insights into some Anglo-Saxon horses. Horses of this type were useful and
valuable. For example, they would be perfectly adequate to pull a cart, even a war-chariot; the
Britons may have employed such horses to pull their chariots as they resisted the Roman
invasion, although they apparently exploited cavalry as well.45 For a horse good enough to
7
ride, however, more care would be required. The most obvious issue is size; a comfortable
riding horse should be large enough that its rider’s feet do not drag on the ground and strong
enough that it does not tire too quickly from carrying the rider’s weight. Luckily, greater size is
not a difficult objective to achieve. Merely feeding pregnant mares and young foals, rather than
letting them forage on their own, can make a difference. Prolonged care of this kind can result
in significant increases in height after a few generations.46 More drastic differences — changes
in conformation,47 for example — require selective breeding and may depend upon the
importation of superior individuals from elsewhere.
Improving the size and quality of horses is thus relatively simple. The problem is that
such improvements are extremely expensive and are as easily lost as gained. To keep control of
prized traits like size, selected individuals must be fed, even though feeding a horse over the
winter could cost more than buying one.48 It is also important that these selected animals do
not breed indiscriminately. Such control requires the gelding of non-selected males, selective
slaughter of unwanted individuals and, most importantly, fences, which require even greater
investments of wealth.49 The history of horse breeding in Europe is a history of gradual
improvements over long periods of time, which were all lost during times of economic crisis
— times when people could not afford to keep the fences fixed and the horses fed.50 In such
conditions, horses are notorious for reverting back to their basic, wild form and losing the
distinctions previously bred into them.51
This process is well-documented in modern times by the development (or degradation) of
the mustang of the American plains and the Brumby of Australia, two breeds which, after
reverting to the wild, developed great hardiness but also deformities and a tendency toward the
‘primitive’ dun colour of the wild horse.52 A similar process can be observed in the Middle
Ages in the fate of the Welsh Powys. In 1166, after infusions of stock from Spain, the Powys
8
was a prestigious, much sought-after breed, purchased by kings like Henry II. In the late
thirteenth century, however, probably as a result of frequent, indiscriminate breeding with feral
mares, the breed was mostly remarkable for its predominantly dun colouring and the fact that
its price was only thirty-seven percent as high as that of other breeds.53 That is, the traits
acquired by careful breeding were lost, and the breed began to revert back to the basic
characteristics of the wild horse.
The level of commitment to horse breeding thus largely determines the kinds of horses
that are available at any time in a particular culture. This discussion of the issues that
contributed to the creation and maintenance of the Anglo-Saxon horse should allow us now to
examine in more detail the appearance and function of this animal before going on to consider
what this information can contribute to an understanding of Beowulf.
THE STATE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON HORSE
Was the Anglo-Saxon horse a dun pony or a fine-bred steed? The answer, of course, is both.
Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period there were horses like the wilde weorf in the forests and
moorlands, horses left to roam freely, largely ‘unimproved’ by careful feeding or selective
breeding, and so worthy of only twelve shillings in compensation, unlike the ‘horse’, ‘mare’
and wintersteal, which, as stated above, were worthy of compensation at the level of thirty,
twenty and twenty shillings respectively. Such distinctions testify that some care was taken
with more valuable animals by the tenth century, at least. In addition, at some point, horses like
the one ridden by Harold in the Bayeux Tapestry appeared. The horse on which Harold rides to
Bosham (Sussex) is depicted as being not only of a distinct colour in comparison with the two
other English horses nearby; it also displays a shape different from the many Norman horses
depicted in the tapestry. Sarah Larratt Keefer suggests that its arched neck, fine muzzle and
9
short back indicates a horse derived from Arab blood.54 That is, this animal appears to be an
expensive foreign import, or perhaps one bred from expensive imported stock.
It may be assumed that there were always horses of poor quality available in AngloSaxon England; in addition to the evidence of Domesday Book, the practice of leaving some
animals to run wild and fend for themselves is referred to by Chaucer.55 The question is when
the Anglo-Saxons began to control breeding and feeding strictly enough to create and preserve
distinctions in quality in some horses and when they began to import quality horses from
abroad.56 Archaeology might be able to provide some answers to these questions, but no largescale study of Anglo-Saxon horse-remains has, to my knowledge, been undertaken thus far,
and the two Anglo-Saxon horses that have received detailed scrutiny, those buried at Sutton
Hoo and Eriswell, provide more warnings than certainty.57 Given the valuable artefacts
accompanying the two burials, these animals could be expected to represent the highest quality
horses available at their time. Unfortunately, their quality has proven difficult to evaluate. For
example, estimates of the sizes of the horses buried at both Sutton Hoo and the Eriswell
cemetery have varied significantly in the course of their investigation. The Eriswell horse,
although originally described as measuring sixteen hands (160 cm) high, is now said to
measure about fourteen hands (140 cm) high.58 The Sutton Hoo horse was apparently measured
as being thirty centimetres smaller but has since been reassessed and ascribed the same height
as the Eriswell horse — fourteen hands high.59 The difference is significant: a horse standing
sixteen or even fourteen hands high could have been an individual produced by a careful
feeding and breeding program; a horse standing eleven hands high fairly certainly was not. It
would be helpful to know other characteristics as well — details such as the profile of the
skull, which, as in the Bayeux Tapestry, can indicate oriental bloodlines — but, with the basic
issue of size apparently uncertain, it seems hazardous to speculate more closely about the
animals’ genotype.60
10
The currently accepted height of these two animals suggests the existence of prestige
animals produced at some expense even in the seventh century, despite assertions by earlier
critics that Anglo-Saxon horses before the Norman conquest remained consistently small (and
thus presumably undeveloped).61 In fact, there are indications from historical sources that
horses received considerable attention throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. For example,
Keefer suggests that the story of Cynewulf and Cyneheard demonstrates the existence of a
mounted royal guard by the mid-eighth century.62 The story of regicide occurs in The AngloSaxon Chronicle:
Ða on morgenne gehierdun þæt þæs cyninges þegnas þe him beæftan wærun þæt se
cyning ofslægen wæs, þa ridon hie þider, & his aldormon Osric, & Wiferþ his
þegn, & þa men þe he beæftan him læfde ær. (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 755 ( =
757))63
Although it does not explicitly state that there was an official mounted guard, the Chronicle
also does not suggest that the king’s men suddenly had to acquire horses for this unexpected
crisis; the men þe he beæftan him læfde ær ‘men whom [the king] had left behind earlier’
appear already to possess horses suitable for hard riding. Such a mounted guard would require
a certain amount of organised breeding to ensure that sufficient numbers of quality horses were
available to transport a mobile escort for the king. This organised breeding may have been a
royal endeavour or one undertaken individually by the nobles accompanying the king; later
evidence (discussed below) would support either possibility. By the ninth century, such
organised breeding was even more necessary, for the whole army was mounted — for
transportation, if not for combat — as Alfred chased marauding, mounted Viking invaders
across the country. For example, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that se cyning Ælfred æfter
þam gehorsudan here mid fierde rad oþ Exanceaster ‘King Alfred rode after the mounted army
with his army to the fortification at Exeter’ (ASC 877 ( = 876)). By the tenth century, the
11
Anglo-Saxons possessed horses whose value was on a par with precious stones and priceless
religious relics — according to William of Malmesbury, at least. William states that in 926
Hugh the Great, Dux Francorum, sought the hand of Athelstan’s sister with extravagant gifts,
including foreign race-horses:
Is, cum in conuentu procerum apud Abbandunam proci postulata exposuisset,
protulit munera sane amplissima, et quae cuiuslibet auarissimi cupiditatem
incunctanter explerent: odores aromatum qualia numquam antea in Anglia uisa
fuerant; honores gemmarum, presertim smaragdorum, in quorum uiriditate sol
repercussus oculos astantium gratiosa luce animaret; equos cursores plurimos cum
faleris, fuluum (ut Maro ait) mandentes sub dentibus aurum.... (Gesta Regum
Anglorum II.135)64
Although not described first, these horses ornamented with classical learning as well as their
own trappings precede a long catalogue of expensive gifts, including a piece of the cross of the
crucifixion. They are neither an afterthought nor a trivial appetiser; they are gifts fit for a king.
Such animals would not only adorn a fashionable king; they would prove invaluable to the
improvement of native breeds.65
William of Malmesbury may not be an accurate witness to the state of the horses in
Anglo-Saxon England, but these sources, taken together, suggest that there were horsebreeding programs throughout much of the Anglo-Saxon period. The state of such programs
probably fluctuated. The existence of well-bred horses buried at Sutton Hoo and Eriswell, even
if proven, could guarantee little about the state of horses in different times and places: the
quality of Cynewulf’s thegns’ horses might not be comparable to the quality of Alfred’s army’s
mounts, and Athelstan might not have possessed horses as good as Alfred’s, much less any
comparable with those brought by Adulf. Like literacy, horse breeding undoubtedly waxed and
12
waned in response to economic and political conditions, as it did on the continent and in later
times.
HORSES LEFT FOR POSTERITY
There is, however, another source of information for the state of horse breeding in AngloSaxon England, which reinforces the scattered hints from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and
William of Malmesbury’s account. Starting in the mid-tenth century, Anglo-Saxon wills
become increasingly concerned with horses, perhaps in response to an increasing demand for
horses for military purposes, or perhaps under Danish influence.66 As these texts have been
explored by previous scholars, only brief citations will be presented here.67 For example,
between 946 and 951, Ælfgar left the following instructions:
Þis is Alfgares quide þat is erst þat ic an mine louerd tueye suerde fetelsade and
tueye bege ayther of fifti mancusas goldes. and þre stedes. and þre scheldes. and
þre speren…. (S 1483)68
This combination of weapons and equipment appears designed to fulfil the requirements of the
‘heriot’ or death-duty; the horses represent a recognised unit of wealth owed to the king by the
deceased, perhaps intended to supply mounts for the king’s mounted guard. Other wills
indicate specific, special horses. For example, Ætheling Æthelstan (Æthelred’s son) in about
1015 picks out þæs horses þe Þurbrand me geaf & þæs hwitan horses þe Leofwine me geaf ‘the
horse that Thurbrand gave me and the white horse that Leofwine gave me’ for his father, anne
blacne stedan ‘a black stallion’ for the Bishop of Winchester and anes fagan stedan ‘a dappled
stallion’ for his steward (S 1503).69 The identification of specific individuals is significant, as
are their colours and gender: white and black are prized colours because they are distinct from
the basic dun colouring of the ‘unimproved’ horse,70 dappled horses may suggest Arabian or
Andalusian bloodlines71 and, as mentioned previously, specially selected stallions can be the
basis of improvement for a whole breed.
13
Such individuals could only be acquired from controlled breeding and were immensely
valuable. In fact, even an ordinary equus of good quality could be as valuable as a human
being:
…emban urne ceapgild: hors to healfan punde, gif hit swa god sy; and gif hit
mætre sy, gilde be his wlites wyrðe and be þam þe se man hit weorðige þe hit age,
buton he gewitnesse habbe, þæt hit swa god wære swa he secge; and habbe þone
ofereacan, þe we þar abiddan... & we cwædon be urum þeowum mannum þam þa
men hæfdon: gif hine man forstæle, þæt hine man forgulde mid healfan punde (VI
Æthelstan 6, 1 and 3).72
Of interest here is not only the price of the horse in comparison with the manservant, but also
the concern expressed regarding its quality. Only a horse of a certain quality, one which is swa
god, receives the full price. A mætre animal, one which is ‘smaller’ or ‘worse’, receives a price
determined first by its appearance and then by the value ascribed to it by the owner and his
witnesses. As discussed earlier, the very visible difference between a god and a mætre animal
derives from the amount of care invested in its upbringing and, especially, its breeding. The
existence of such quality animals in sufficient numbers to justify a set price testifies to the
productivity of the studfarms mentioned in Anglo-Saxon wills. For example, Ætheling
Æthelstan may have overseen the production of his special horses himself, as his will
specifically mentions a studfarm: Ic geann…minon headeorhunton þæs stodes þe is on
Colungahrycge ‘I grant to my staghunter the studfarm which is in Colungahrycg’ (S 1503).73
Other Anglo-Saxon wills similarly contain indications of horse breeding on a significant scale.
Ælfhelm’s will (around 975–1016) indicates that even women could become involved in the
industry: Ic gean minum wiue healues þaes stodes æt Trostingtune ‘I grant to my wife half of
the studfarm at Troston’ (S 1487).74 Wulfric (between 1002 and 1004) bequeaths an hund
wildra horsa & sextene tame hencgestas ‘a hundred wild horses and sixteen tame geldings’ to
14
the monastery at Burton (S 1536).75 The production of large numbers of ‘wild horses’ might
not inspire confidence in a directed breeding program, but collections of trained horses are
more significant, especially if they are specifically geldings, males that have been prevented
from breeding indiscriminately.
References to studfarms indicate that some Anglo-Saxons possessed particularly
extensive numbers of horses, but the possession of horses was not limited to these individuals.
As suggested in the discussion of Ælfgar’s will, all nobles were expected to possess some
quality horses, since their ‘heriot’ or death-duty included them. Cnut specifies his demands for
horses according to the rank of the nobleman:
Eorles swa ðærto gebyrige, þæt syndon viii hors, iiii gesadelode & iiii unsadelode,
& iiii helmas & iiii byrnan & viii spera & eallswa fela scylda & iiii swurd & twa
hund mances goldes. & syððan cingces þegnas, þe him nyhste syndan: iiii hors, ii
gesadelode & ii unsadelode, & ii swurd & iiii spera & swa feala scylda & helm &
byrnan & l mances goldes. & medemra þegna: hors & his geræda & his wæpn oððe
his healsfang on wessexan; & on myrcan ii pund & on eastenglan ii pund. (II Cnut
71)76
The requirement for horses with saddles and corresponding numbers of weapons strongly
implies that these horses were intended for military use.77 If this is the case, then these horses,
too, must have been ‘special’: they were finely bred enough to be of adequate size and
strength, and the ones bearing saddles, at least, had received some training, if not the rigorous
instruction required of a warhorse.78 Such a heriot-system could have provided the mounts for
Alfred’s army. In association with this organised provision of horses for military use, Davis
argues that there was a special royal officer in charge of the king’s horses.79
15
INVOLVEMENT OF THE CHURCH
The finely bred horse was not only a possession of the military elite, however; the religious
elite became involved in the provision and ownership of valuable animals, too. As noted
above, Ætheling Æthelstan left a black stallion to the Bishop of Winchester; such an animal
would have been a luxurious mount for a powerful man, or perhaps a valuable asset for a
studfarm. Bishop Ælfwold’s will (1008–1012) also indicates a significant amount of wealth
invested in horses:
Þis is Alfwoldes bisceopes cwyde.... He geann his hlaforde feower horsa, twa
gesadelode & twa unsadelode.... & þam æþelinge .xl. mancsa goldes & þæra wildra
worfa æt Æscburnan lande.... & Alfwolde munuce .xx. mancsa goldes & anes
horses & anes geteldes. & Byrhtmære preoste xx mancsa goldes & anes horses. &
his þrim magon Eadwolde & Æþelnoðe & Grimkytele hira ælcon .xx. mancsa
goldes & hira ælcon anes horses..... & Boian anes horses.... & Leofwine Polgan &
Mælpatrike & Byrhsige hira þreora ælcon an hors & ælcon hiredmen his onrid þe
he alæned hæfde.... (S 1492)80
Of interest here is not only the potentially large number of horses owned by the bishop (he
grants one to each of his unnumbered retainers, plus thirteen others) but also the wildu worf
‘wild horses’, which may be assets belonging to a studfarm.81 The apparent value of the
individual horses granted is also notable: single animals are given in combination with large
sums of money. Yet the bishop was apparently not entirely free to dispose of these valuable
animals as he pleased. A certain portion of the bishop’s wealth in horses (in addition to gold
and military equipment) was specifically owed to the king, for, as the first grant included in
this citation indicates, bishops, like nobles, owed the king a ‘heriot’. Ælfwold’s grant of four
horses is echoed in Bishop Theodred’s will (between 942 and 951), which specifies that the
grant represents his ‘heriot’:
16
Þat is þan erst þat he an his louerd his heregete þat is þanne tua hund marcas arede
goldes and tua cuppes siluerene and four hors so ic best habbe and to suerde so ic
best habbe & foure schelda and foure spere…. (S 1526)82
The church also participated in the horse-industry on an institutional basis. The abbey at
Burton-on-Trent possessed a ‘haraz’ or stud-farm of seventy horses between 1094 and 1114,83
and a charter dated to 875 documents the termination of arrangements whereby the churches of
Worcester had previously paid their taxes to the king by providing for his horses:
Ego Ceolwulf gratia Dei gratuita largiente rex Merciorum aliquid mihi in
elemosinam donare precogitavi ut sempiterne mercedis portionem acceptarem ideo
rogatus a Werfriðo antestite Huicciorum et familia in Uueogernacestre . istam
libertatem . cum meorum omnium unanimo consensu episcoporum et principum .
ac etiam cunctorum optimatum nostræ gentis perpetualiter donavi ut tota parrochia
Hwicciorum a pastu aequorum regis et eorum qui eos ducunt obsoluta et secura
permansisset... (S 215)84
Such an arrangement raises the possibility that even monks could have been aware of — and
perhaps actively involved in — the secular business of horse breeding.85
The discussion thus far has shown both the importance of horse breeding and the
widespread practice of it by the late Anglo-Saxon period. This practice produced significant
numbers of horses, many set aside for a military context and some distinguished as valuable
individuals, even if it never attained the level achieved two centuries earlier in the Frankish
Empire under Charlemagne.86 The legislation in VI Æthelstan, which set the price of a horse
according to its appearance, confirms the success of Anglo-Saxon breeders, since the
distinctions in quality that they achieved were widely and clearly visible. In fact, the horses
produced by this business would have been not only extremely expensive but also immediately
17
recognisable — the equivalent of flashy sports cars worth a hundred thousand pounds and
looking every penny.87 Awareness of this highly visible industry and the wealth associated
with it provides an important perspective for understanding the horses in the heroic, elite world
celebrated by Old English poetry.
HORSES IN BEOWULF
The different kinds of evidence discussed thus far all ascribe importance of some kind to
horses throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. The specific kind of importance is often uncertain,
and it probably varied through time: it may have been religious or economic or both in the fifth
and sixth century; it may have been both economic and military in the tenth and eleventh. In
many ways, the uncertainty of inscrutable and immeasurable horses seems appropriate enough
to the uncertainty of the inscrutable and undatable Beowulf. Despite its uncertainty, however,
the information available about horses in Anglo-Saxon England provides suggestive contexts
for the horses in Beowulf. These horses appear in five well-worn passages, which have been
cited countless times, even by writers primarily concerned with the later development of
medieval warhorses: the description of the Danes racing their horses in celebration of the death
of Grendel (Beowulf 864–7a and 916–17a), the description of the horses that Hrothgar gives to
Beowulf as a reward for this killing (1035–49) and the description of the passing on of these
horses to Hygelac and Hygd (2163–6a and 2172–5a). The discussion undertaken up to this
point clarifies some aspects of these passages which have previously caused confusion.
THE COLOUR OF HORSES
The first passage describes the joyful exuberance of a people freed from terror:
Hwilum heaþorofe hleapan leton,
on geflit faran fealwe mearas
ðær him foldwegas fægere þuhton,
18
cystum cuðe. (Beowulf 864–7a)88
An important issue in this passage is the colour of the horses. A few lines earlier, the poet uses
the poetic term, blanca, to describe the same horses (856a). Here, however, the horses are
described as fealu. This colour seems to have struck many translators as strange, as it has been
rendered in a bewildering number of ways — as ‘yellow’, ‘fallow’, ‘pale’, ‘russet’, ‘bay’,
‘dappled’, ‘brown’, ‘tawny, dusky’ and ‘red and brown and pale yellow’.89 Sometimes it is
omitted altogether.90 Critics have addressed the issue as well. For example, it has been argued
that the transformation in the appearance of the horses from blanca to fealu indicates the
thematic issue of inevitable decay and reversal in the poem.91 It has also been argued that there
are two separate groups of horses: a group of prestigious white horses (blanca), of the kind
treasured, for example, by the Germanic tribes described by Tacitus, and a group of less
valuable horses, dun nags, ridden by younger warriors.92 With this kind of variety and
ambiguity, it is important to consider the meaning of fealu before drawing any conclusions
about what it might mean to have fealu horses in Beowulf.
Colour-words are not self-evident; while modern English focuses almost exclusively on
hue, other languages may emphasise tone, saturation, or surface effects instead,93 and even
languages that possess equally rich vocabularies for colour (as Modern English and Modern
French do) may mark the boundaries between individual hues in very different ways.94 Old
English was not at the same stage of development as Modern English in its vocabulary for
colour;95 in addition, it may not have marked the boundaries between hues in the same way
that Modern English does.96 Although it has been argued that Old English was more concerned
with ‘brightness’ than hue,97 modern scholars’ attempts to codify this aspect of colour as the
central difference between Old English and Modern English have probably been precipitate. 98
In the context of this uncertainty, it is perhaps unsurprising that fealu has received less than
straightforward translations and a significant amount of critical discussion.99 The word
19
describes a variety of items other than horses, even in the limited context of Old English
poetry, including waves, shields, wood and flames,100 and these other referents have suggested
to some critics that its meaning may range from pale yellow to red to brown and even to
green.101 Some critics, however, have been content with ‘various shades of yellow’,102 while
others have sought more particular associations — for example, Barbara Raw suggests that the
word ‘involves an implied comparison with a ploughed field or perhaps the brown of dead
leaves’.103 It is, of course, quite likely that the word had different meanings in different
contexts; as Carole Biggam notes, the word ‘white’ can describe fresh snow, yellow wine and
the pink to pale brown colour of a ‘white’ person’s skin.104 It has also been suggested that fealu
may have originally been a term specific to the description of horses.105 Whether or not this is
true, the variety of contexts in which the word appears in Old English poetry suggests that the
term might not be primarily concerned with hue, with ‘yellow’ as modern speakers of English
understand it. Previous critics have suggested that the main emphasis of this word is on
reflectivity — glossiness or luminosity106 — but it may, in fact, play a more important role as a
saturation word, denoting a lack of saturation or vividness in a small range of colours,
including yellow.107
A modern reader or translator is unlikely to be satisfied with ‘dull’ horses of
indeterminate hue, but the problems involved in determining a hue for fealu should not be
underestimated. The following discussion aims to sketch out some of these problems; it does
not presume to solve them. In addition to the shields, water and flames already mentioned,
fealu describes blossoms (The Phoenix 74b), a bird’s feet (The Phoenix 311a) and the head of
a badger (Riddle 15, 1),108 not to mention gold (Beowulf 2757b, Battle of Maldon 166b).
Although thus far I have focused on poetic contexts, the evidence from prose does not appear
to suggest that fealu is a poetic term or possesses a special poetic meaning. Thus fealu is
confirmed as an attribute of blossoms in, for example, two prose medical texts, the Herbarium
20
of Pseudo-Apuleius and Bald’s Leechbook.109 The latter example is especially interesting, as it
specifies fealwan doccan næs þa readan. This phrase seems to suggest a contrast between two
hues rather than a contrast between saturated and unsaturated colours — ‘the yellow dock, not
the red’.110 Usage here does not, of course, guarantee that usage elsewhere also indicates hue.
Regardless, it is worth noting the opposition between fealu and read posited in this text, since
elsewhere the ranges that these terms denote overlap. For example, fulvus ‘deep or reddish
yellow’ and flavus ‘golden or reddish yellow’ are glossed by read111 as well as by fealu.112
Glossaries are an important source of information regarding the meanings of uncertain
words, but the definitions they provide must be treated with caution; the example of fealu may
indicate some of the potential hazards. Thus, although a series of different Latin words appear
in a gloss with fealu, the uncertainty inherent in these Latin words’ meanings allows little
certainty for fealu.113 For example, the Harley Glossary contains the following entry: Fuluum
flauum splendidum nigrum geolu rubeum rubicundum fealu.114 Some of these items appear to
support a straightforward meaning for fealu, but the length of this entry itself suggests a
complicated history, and the terms within it thus demand caution.115 Nevertheless, the
combination of fuluus ‘deep or reddish yellow’, flavus ‘golden or reddish yellow, flaxen, or
blonde’ and the Old English word geolu (the origin of the modern word ‘yellow’) suggests that
‘yellow’ is a possible definition for fealu, while rubeus ‘ruddy’ and rubicundus ‘red, ruddy’
suggest that the word may have covered a range including modern orange and red. The other
words in this entry, however, remind us once again that there is no simple answer, as they
indicate attributes which are less specifically connected with hue and are apparently
contradictory: splendidus means ‘brilliant’, and niger means ‘black, dark’. Fealu also appears
elsewhere as a gloss for busius ‘dark?’.116 Geolu contains similar ambiguities; although it
glosses giluus ‘pale yellow’, crocus ‘saffron, yellow’, succinaceus ‘amber-coloured’ and flabus
‘yellow, golden’, it also glosses melinus ‘white’ and venetus ‘blue’.117
21
These problems are compounded when we look to compounds which incorporate fealu:
musfealu, dunfalo, æscfealu and, most importantly for Beowulf, æppelfealu. Musfealu appears
in a gloss with myrteus ‘chestnut brown’ and bleoread ‘reddish colour’.118 Again, the
relationships between these words may not be simple, and so the three terms cannot simply be
taken as equivalents of each other. Even if they were, however, this gloss does not provide
much help in understanding the roots of the compound. Fealu, which may mean ‘yellow’,
‘pale’, ‘dull’ or, less probably, ‘dark’,119 is combined with mus, presumably ‘the colour of a
mouse’. The colour of mice can, unfortunately, range from dusky grey to bright yellowish
brown to reddish brown, depending on the species and the individual.120 A mouse could thus
easily be myrteus ‘chestnut brown’ or bleoread ‘reddish’, without needing modification from
fealu. A similar problem attends the compound dunfalo, which glosses ceruinus ‘deercoloured’.121 Even if we can assume some kind of equivalence between these two words, the
range of possibility for dunfalo remains very wide, since the type of deer makes a difference to
what we might expect from the Old English compound. The season makes a difference, too:
both Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) and Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) change from reddish
brown in summer to greyish brown in winter; the Fallow Deer (Dama dama) changes from
yellowish brown in summer to greyish brown in winter, but it may not have been known to an
Anglo-Saxon glossator.122 Æscfealu and its companion æscgræg may be slightly less
ambiguous, since ‘ash’ does not change colour with the seasons, at least, even if it does vary
according to the type of wood burnt. Even so, further investigation into these compounds
reveals yet more issues, this time specifically linked to horses and thus particularly interesting
for the present discussion. Together these two words gloss cinereus deterrimus color ‘ashygrey, the worst colour’, a phrase taken from Isidore of Seville’s ranking of horses based upon
their colours.123 Although Isidore’s opinion probably had little effect upon horse-breeding in
Anglo-Saxon England, it is interesting to find fealu linked with a colour describing a less
22
valued type of horse, and it is tempting to see in æscfealu, if not in Isidore’s original
comments, a reference to the dun-colouring of the ‘unimproved’ horse.
In general, however, it is important to remember that the dictionary definitions of Latin
words relied upon here are focused on hue. It may be that these colour terms did not indicate
one of yellow, brown or grey but rather degrees of saturation, and so a correct identification of
the type of mouse or deer might not actually clarify the meaning of fealu. Nevertheless, the
discussion thus far suggests that neither ‘bay’ nor ‘chestnut’ are likely meanings for fealu —
nor for æppelfealu.124 Æppelfealu, however, appears only in Beowulf; there are no glosses to
contribute to (or complicate) its meaning.125
There is a text, however, which may suggest a general hue component for fealu
specifically in the context of horses. The Prognostics ascribes meanings to objects and events
occurring in dreams. The colours of horses are significant:
Gyf mon mete, þæt he hwit hors hæbbe oððe on ride, þæt byð weorðmind. Gyf him
þince, þæt he on blacum horse ride, þæt byð his goda modes eagnes. Gyf him
þince, þæt he on redum horse ride, þæt byð his goda wanigend. Gyf him þince, þæt
he on fealawan horse ride þæt byð god oððe grægan þæt byð god swefn.
(Prognostics 56–9)126
Here we have the fealu horse contrasted with horses of other tones and hues — white, black
and red. As it is distinct from hwit, fealu seems unlikely to mean merely ‘pale’ in this context
(as opposed to, for example, ‘pale yellow’); as it is distinct from blæc, it also seems unlikely to
mean merely ‘dark’. Its combination with græg does not necessarily mean that the two terms
indicate similar hues; greyness can indicate the lack of saturation which has been suggested for
fealu.127 More important, the problematic nature of the text here suggests that the insertion of
the grey horse may have derived from an error in manuscript transmission.128 Any
23
interpretation of this part of the text thus must be made with caution. Nevertheless, it is worth
remembering that the basic or ‘ancestral’ colour of the horse ranges from yellowish dun to
grey. This text thus may interpret a dream about a rather ordinary, inexpensive horse — either
dun or grey — as indicating general good luck.
Although ‘dun steeds’ can only be a tentative translation of fealwe mearas, some
suggestions and interpretations can be made. Fealu indicates neither well-brushed glossiness
nor a poetic rendering of the bay colouring prized by later Medieval horse-breeders. The huecomponent of fealu’s meaning, as indicated, for example, by its collocation with fields, gravel
and roads, suggests the grey to dun colour of the wild or feral horse.129 The saturationcomponent of fealu’s meaning, its suggestion of ‘dullness’, may or may not be important in
this context, but it likewise provides a contrast with the stark colours of the esteemed black and
white horses described as valuable, individual animals in late Anglo-Saxon wills.
The image of noble warriors (heaþorofe ‘battle-brave ones’) mounted on dun ponies is
worlds away from the world of Ætheling Æthelstan’s blæc steda ‘black stallion’ and AngloSaxon studfarms. It may also be centuries away from that world. Although I hesitate to raise
the contentious issue of the poem’s date, especially in view of the many cogent arguments for a
late date for the composition of Beowulf,130 I suggest that the horses in the poem would have
been presented very differently if the poem were written after the tenth century.
TRADITIONAL POETIC HORSES
The argument is not, of course, simple. As many critics have noted, the poem betrays an
archaising tendency; some have argued that the poet was a historian, or, at least, someone with
a particular interest in the past and a solid knowledge of Germanic legends.131 It is possible that
such a poet not only could have reproduced the pony race of Scandinavian legends but would
24
have had a clear motivation for doing so: such an episode would be part of the way in which
the poet sought to recreate or allude to the heroic activity of a previous, if not Golden, Age.132
It is also possible that oral tradition bequeathed formulae in which the horses were
always dun.133 The first mention of fealwe mearas is the first half of a frame which contains
not only the ‘digressions’ about Sigmund and Heremod, old legends apparently well-known
and thus only half told (874b–913a), but also the description of the traditional oral-formulaic
poet (867b–874a).134 A second reference to these horses completes the frame or envelope
around this interlude focused upon the poet’s traditional sources and methods.135 Again, the
horses are accompanied by the word fealu:
Hwilum flitende fealwe stræte
mearum mæton. (916–17a)136
This second collocation of fealu with mearas admirably encloses what amounts to a short
exemplum on the material and method of the traditional poet, but it also raises the possibility
that it is the traditional material and method that make the horses dun. Here fealu refers to the
road, not the horses, but perhaps the traditional, heroic context created the expectation of such
a collocation; perhaps traditional poetry continued to celebrate fealwe mearas even though
other kinds of horses had been observed for centuries.137 The transferral of this attribute may
be a sign of this poet’s subtle manipulation of his or her poetic heritage; it may derive from the
Beowulf-poet’s delight in and access to old material.
The over-arching motivation of poetic tradition also renders any questions about fealwe
blancas ‘dun (white) horses’ easy to dismiss: if fealwe mearas and blancas are both poetic
terms with no necessary connection to an external reality, we need not worry about a conflict
between different images of horses, or even any particular image at all. However, while blanca
does seem to be a poetic word with no requirement for whiteness, fealwe mearas appear
25
nowhere else. If poetic tradition (insofar as we know it) specified a role for fealu, it was in the
context of descriptions of the sea, not horses.138 The absence of support for a poetic tradition of
dun horses does not, of course, invalidate the existence of the envelope pattern, but it does
suggest that the fealwe mearas may indeed be an image rather than an empty phrase chosen for
alliteration, even if the details of that image remain uncertain.
The ambiguities of the discussion thus far may appear to leave little room for suggestions
regarding the horses in Beowulf. However, despite the effort I have expended on fealu, the
colour of the horses is not the only issue of interest. I have addressed the issue of colour at
length mainly because other details regarding these horses are sorely lacking — here and
elsewhere in the poem. For example, nothing is said about the length of their pasterns, the
carriage of their tails, the profile of their heads, the length of their backs, the amount of hair on
their fetlocks, their gender or even their size, which may be the most straightforward attribute
for determining these horses’ breeding. In fact, what is most significant is not the colour of the
horses but rather the absence of these other details.
GIFTS FROM A GENEROUS KING
This absence is striking, especially in contexts which are specifically descriptive. For example,
the poet provides an account of the gifts that Hrothgar presents to Beowulf in reward for his
killing of Grendel:
Forgeaf þa Beowulfe bearn Healfdenes
segen gyldenne sigores to leane;
hroden hildecumbor, helm ond byrnan,
mære maðþumsweord manige gesawon
beforan beorn beran. Beowulf geþah
ful on flette; no he þære feohgyfte
26
for sceotendum scamigan ðorfte.
Ne gefrægn ic freondlicor feower madmas
golde gegyrede gummanna fela
in ealobence oðrum gesellan.
Ymb þæs helmes hrof heafodbeorge
wirum bewunden walu utan heold,
þæt him fela laf frecne ne meahton
scurheard sceþðan, þonne scyldfreca
ongean gramum gangan scolde. (Beowulf 1020–35)139
This passage is particularly noteworthy for its use of heightened style; three times the poet
emphasises the immeasurable generosity of Hrothgar’s gifts through litotes: ‘Beowulf had no
need to be ashamed’ — that is, he had great reason to be proud; ‘I have not heard of many men
giving treasure in a more friendly way’ — that is, I have never heard of any men giving
treasure in such a friendly way; ‘not many swords could harm the warrior wearing this helmet’
— that is, no sword could pierce so great a helmet. The poet also notes the witnesses observing
this transaction, for this public ceremony demonstrates to both the internal (Danish) audience
and the external (Anglo-Saxon and modern) audience the worthiness not only of Beowulf’s
deed but also Hrothgar’s kingship: this is a god cyning ‘a good king’ (863b), a fabulously
successful and thus wealthy ruler who gives the very best in reward for loyal service.
Immediately following this passage, the poet supplements this great act of gift-giving
with a few more items:
Heht ða eorla hleo eahta mearas
fætedhleore on flet teon,
in under eoderas. Þara anum stod
sadol searwum fah, since gewurþad;
27
þæt wæs hildesetl heahcyninges,
ðonne sweorda gelac sunu Healfdenes
efnan wolde. Næfre on ore læg
widcuþes wig, ðonne walu feollon.
Ond ða Beowulfe bega gehwæþres
eodor Ingwina onweald geteah,
wicga ond wæpna, het hine wel brucan.
Swa manlice mære þeoden,
hordweard hæleþa, heaþoræsas geald
mearum ond madmum, swa hy næfre man lyhð,
se þe secgan wile soð æfter rihte. (1035–49)140
Having already given Beowulf treasures of indescribable wealth, Hrothgar now adds yet more
gifts, in the form of horses. These horses are valuable; they would not otherwise have a place
amongst Hrothgar’s gifts. Yet they also possess a secondary, supplementary position in
comparison with the first four items presented to Beowulf. In fact, the poet almost completely
disregards them. Not only is there no mention of conformation, size or gender;141 there is also
no mention of colour. In fact, the horses themselves hardly ‘appear’ in the three lines devoted
to them. The description focuses on the treasure they bear and, again, Hrothgar’s great
worthiness, this time in war.
The poet concludes this description with a narratorial intrusion which states what has
been evident throughout this passage: the poet’s approval of Hrothgar’s generosity. Overall,
then, the poet has lavished considerable labour on this passage, adorning the gift-giving
ceremony with both litotes and direct commentary, so that no one can question Hrothgar’s
great worthiness. In this context of great wealth and considerable poetic exertion, it seems
significant that the description of the horses remains unelaborated. Although the absence of
28
colour-description here suggests that no argument can be raised for undeveloped horses, the
lack of any other attributes raises the possibility that these are not precious or particularly
expensive horses. In fact, these horses are nothing more than walking treasure-carriers; their
importance derives from their adornment,142 first from the eight gilded bridles (fætedhleor),143
but most of all from the sadol searwum fah, since gewurþad ‘saddle adorned with skilful
devices, glorified with treasures’, which is also the hildesetl heahcyninges ‘the war-seat of the
high king’ (1038–9). This war-seat marks the culmination of the gifts because it represents
Hrothgar’s authority:144 bequeathing the war-seat may represent the conveyance of that
authority to Beowulf and thus may be a sign of ‘adoption’.
THE VALUE OF INDIVIDUALITY
Subsequent descriptions of these same treasures reinforce the distinctions between the primary
treasures and the secondary horses. When Beowulf bestows his gains upon Hygelac, once
again the first four treasures, the banner, byrnie, helmet and sword, take precedence; the horses
follow behind them. This time, however, the poet provides some description of the horses
themselves:
Hyrde ic þæt þam frætwum feower mearas
lungre, gelice, last weardode,
æppelfealuwe; he him est geteah
meara ond maðma. (2163–6a)145
The detail awarded to the horses in this passage is comparatively extensive. There is, for
example, what appears to be a comment on the quality of the animals, for they are lungre
‘swift’. The previously unstated colour of the horses given by Hrothgar is also revealed,
perhaps because of the need for alliteration. What may be more important, however, than their
colour (æppelfealuwe) is the fact that they are all alike (gelice). The gift of a collection of
matching horses can be seen as a token of Hrothgar’s good taste — or perhaps again of his
29
wealth, in that he can afford to select horses on the basis of their congruence with each other.
Nevertheless, the evidence of other, later texts suggests that the value of a truly expensive
horse normally derived from its individuality and distinction from ordinary horses.
The value of such distinction is quite marked, for example, in The Song of Roland (c.
1100), where the horses of the main characters have names indicating their individual
appearance and distinctive qualities,146 sometimes possess their own history147 and are often
described as being superior to all other horses. The description of Archbishop Turpin’s horse
provides a good example of the amount of detail that can be provided:
Li arcevesque cumencet la bataille.
Siet el cheval qu’il tolit a Grossaille,
Co ert uns reis qu’il ocist en Denemarche.
Li destrers est e curanz e aates,
Piez a coplez e les gambes ad plates,
Curte la quisse e la crupe bien large,
Lungs les costez e l’eschine ad ben halte,
Blanche la cue e la crignete jalne,
Petites les oreilles, la teste tute falve;
Beste nen est nule ki encontre lui alge. (Chanson de Roland 1487–96)148
Similarly, in The Romance of Horn, King Hunlaf’s horse is identified specifically as mun
destrier Passevent, le helzan ‘my sorrel horse, ‘Swifter-than-the-Wind’, and it is said of the
hero’s horse that N’ot si bon el païs plus isnel ne plus chier ‘there was no better, faster or
dearer in the land’.149 In the latter case especially, the unique superiority of the hero is
complemented by the unique superiority of his horse.
30
The horses granted by Hrothgar stand in stark contrast with these magnificently
presented animals. The previous discussion of fealu and its compounds suggests that the
indistinguishable horses given to Beowulf were probably dun like the others ridden by the
Danes, but the word used to describe them, æppelfealu, requires some attention. The word only
appears here; its meaning is disputed. The suggestions of the major dictionaries demonstrate
the uncertainty: Bosworth-Toller suggests ‘apple-fallow, apple or reddish yellow’; the
Dictionary of Old English suggests ‘of uncertain meaning: the colour of a horse, variously
interpreted as “reddish-yellow”, “glossy bay”, “dappled dun”’.150 Translators are similarly
uncertain. Many retain the term almost untranslated; some supply ‘bay’; some combine the two
options.151 Some critics have suggested ‘dappled dun’,152 and I have provisionally adopted this
translation, despite the uncertain connection between ‘dapple’ and ‘apple’,153 because it is
biologically plausible and maintains an echo of the original sound.154 Although this meaning
can only be tentative, the colour may still be significant — or, at least, the absence of another
colour may be. If the horses given by Hrothgar were the product of a late Anglo-Saxon
studfarm, we might have expected a black or white one in the collection, as these are colours of
distinction in Anglo-Saxon wills, such as the will of Ætheling Æthelstan. At the very least, we
could expect some mention of their gender: tenth century Anglo-Saxon wills particularly pick
out stallions, probably because of their value for breeding but perhaps also because only
stallions were used as warhorses.155 Such considerations are especially pertinent to these
passages from Beowulf, as one of the horses bears Hrothgar’s war-seat.156
The final mention of these horses reconfirms the same points. Having given four horses
to Hygelac, Beowulf apparently keeps one for himself157 and gives the three remaining to
Hygelac’s queen, Hygd. First, and most notably, however, he gives her the necklace which
Wealhtheow had given to him:
Hyrde ic þæt he ðone healsbeah Hygde gesealde,
31
wrætlicne wundurmaððum, ðone þe him Wealhðeo geaf
ðeodnes dohtor, þrio wicg somod
swancor ond sadolbeorht; hyre syððan wæs
æfter beahðege breost geweorðod. (2172–6)158
The respective value of these gifts is once again clear: the poet begins with the necklace, spares
two half-lines for the horses and then returns to the necklace, noting the prestige granted by
this more important gift. The description of the horses itself ends with a reference to their
adornment, not their distinction.
Nevertheless, although the horses appear to be of secondary importance in the catalogue
of Hrothgar’s gifts, they are in no way ignoble beasts. The poet’s depiction of Hrothgar as ideal
generous king requires that these animals represent the very highest standard in livestock.159
They are mearas, mounts for the celebrated heroes of poetry, not jades or cheap cart-horses,
despite their colouring. Translators have attempted to transform the poet’s dun horses into
more acceptable steeds, but the poet’s insistence on these horses’ colouring may actually
provide a clue toward the identification of a type of animal both more acceptable to our
expectations and less anachronistic. The Norwegian Fjord Pony is an extremely old breed,
domesticated perhaps by 2000 BC and carefully bred for over 2000 years, although no directed
selection program was implemented until the mid 1880s.160 They are thought to be the ponies
used by Vikings in times of war.161 They invariably maintain a ‘primitive’ colouring, dun with
black mane, tail and dorsal stripe; the uninstructed viewer can rarely distinguish between
them.162 This uniformity has been achieved through an absolute avoidance of contact with
outside stock, and the breed even now refuses any attempt to introduce foreign blood.163 Thus,
while they are prized and carefully selected within the breed itself, Fjord Ponies are
‘unimproved’ by infusions from oriental or other foreign blood and remain fairly small
(between thirteen and fourteen hands high) and uniform in appearance.
32
There is no way of proving, of course, that the horses described in Beowulf are Fjord
Ponies. Nevertheless, the example of this breed does provide an explanation for both the value
and the apparently poor description of the animals given by Hrothgar. Fjord Ponies, too, could
be described in terms reminiscent of feral or unbred horses, and yet they are the prized product
of careful selection over thousands of years; what they lack is the size and variety that arises
from breeding with imports.164 Given the rest of the description of Hrothgar’s gift-giving, we
can probably assume that the poet intended to depict Hrothgar’s horses as the best that were
available. The image of these horses is not, however, one of horses improved through contact
with foreign blood — not, that is, an image compatible with the studfarms and special horses
described in tenth and eleventh century wills.
REVISING THE PAST
It would take little to modify any or all of these passages so as to make a significant difference
to these horses’ presentation. Thus, for example, someone suspicious of William of
Malmesbury’s account of 926 might suggest that the high value placed on the animals given to
Æthelstan indicates an attitude toward horses coloured by the post-Norman conquest values
associated with feudalism, even though Anglo-Saxon wills suggest a developing if not well
established horse-breeding industry. Beowulf shows no sign of such later colouring, despite the
fact that a reviser or rewriter of ancient legends could have added a few lines to note the
individuality of at least some of the horses, in the same way as the sword given by Hrothgar is
identified as being a famous individual (mære maðþumsweord (1023b)). For example, the poet
might have noted that the horse ridden by Hrothgar, the wicg wundenfeax ‘horse with wavy /
braided mane’ (1400a)165 is suitably superior to other horses, in keeping with Hrothgar’s
exalted status, just as Byrhtnoth’s wlanc wicge ‘proud horse’ (Battle of Maldon 240) is
(unfortunately) instantly recognisable, undoubtedly because of its geræde ‘trappings’ (Battle of
33
Maldon 190) but perhaps also because of its quality and size.166 In the same way, although a
reviser or late poet might not have felt free to expound upon the horses to the same extent as
the poet of La Chanson de Roland, such a writer might have noted that the horses were
superior in some way — that they possessed a value greater than ordinary horses. The
Beowulf-poet, however, does not note whether the horses given by Hrothgar to Beowulf were
distinguished in any way other than their equipment.
It is easy to see that a historically-minded poet is likely to have reproduced a pony-race
based on knowledge of Germanic legend. It is more difficult to understand why this poet, who,
as has been often noted, maintains a particular concern with good kingship and generosity,
would pass up an opportunity to glorify Hrothgar’s generosity — and not elaborating the
horses is passing up a golden opportunity to comment on generosity.167 Well-bred, ‘improved’
horses are precisely the kinds of gifts given by and to kings. This is true in Anglo-Saxon
England from a very early date. For example, Bede recounts a story about Oswine, who ruled
from 644 to 651 and who objected when Bishop Aidan passed the horse that he had given to
him on to a beggar:
Donauerat equum optimum antistiti Aidano, in quo ille, quamuis ambulare solitus,
uel amnium fluenta transire uel, si alia quaelibet necessitas insisteret, uiam
peragere posset. Cui cum paruo interiecto tempore pauper quidam occurreret
elimosynam petens, desiliens ille praecepit equum, ita ut erat stratus regaliter
pauperi dari; erat enim multum misericors et cultor pauperum ac uelut pater
miserorum. Hoc cum regi esset relatum, dicebat episcopo, cum forte ingressuri
essent ad prandium: ‘Quid uoluisti, domine antistes, equum regium, quem te
conueniebat proprium habere, pauperi dare? Numquid non habuimus equos uiliores
plurimos, uel alias species quae ad pauperum dona sufficerent, quamuis illum eis
34
equum non dares, quem tibi specialiter possidendum elegi?’ (Historia ecclesiastica
iii.14)168
Bede’s point, of course, is Aidan’s holiness and selflessness. Oswine’s point is not that Aidan
had spurned the offer of a ride, but rather that he possessed plenty of ordinary horses (perhaps
equae silvestrae), which would have been good enough for a poor man and which he would
have been willing to give. My point is that this horse was something special, an equus regius
‘royal horse’, the kind of mount specially selected by the king to be conueniens for a bishop,
the kind of mount that can only be produced with considerable effort. In this context, we can
better understand the terms of the king’s question (particularly conueniebat, uiliores, alias
species and specialiter), and we might also anticipate the king’s irritation, for this horse was
doubly wasted: not only was its quality no doubt seen as being too good for its impoverished
rider, but its bloodline could now be diluted and ultimately lost through uncontrolled breeding
with ordinary horses. The bishop’s act of generosity threw away not merely a filius equae ‘son
of a mare’, as Aidan himself suggests in reply to the king, but rather the culminating product of
an expensive and long-term chain of investments in fences, feeding and controlled breeding.
This may be an isolated incident, but it seems likely that the equus regius was the AngloSaxon equivalent of a Fjord Pony, an animal derived from careful, controlled breeding over
many years. Whether such an animal retained the ‘primitive’ colouring still borne by the Fjord
Pony is unknown but unlikely considering the mixture of breeds already in England when the
Anglo-Saxons arrived.169 Regardless, the story demonstrates that there was an appreciation of
the distinct appearance and status of a well-bred horse already in the seventh century. After this
point, as discussed earlier, the need for a controlled supply of good horses — horses of a
sufficient size and quality, at least, to withstand long-distance riding — grows increasingly
evident. Thus, relying upon Bede’s story of Oswine’s equus regius and thinking about the
apparent lack of distinction in the horses in Beowulf, one could potentially date the poem as
35
deriving from a time as early as the seventh century. 170 Some of the cautions raised earlier still
need to be considered, however. It is possible that a poet of any century could be wellinformed about horse-breeding practices in previous centuries and that such a poet would
deliberately describe Hrothgar’s sumptuous gifts in terms that would appear to a later AngloSaxon audience to indicate dun, non-descript and thus cheap horses. In fact, it is probably
impossible to dismiss the potential resources and resiliency of the oral tradition. Nevertheless,
as the horses are not the poet’s main concern, it is possible that these incidental details
represent assumptions deriving from the poet’s own culture rather than deliberate archaic
colouring.171
It is also worth considering the effect that this description of horses might have had on an
audience late in the Anglo-Saxon period. A poet composing for an audience of people whose
wills specify exactly which precious horse should go to whom would have seriously undercut
the image of Hrothgar as an exemplary generous king if he or she described him as giving what
appeared to be feral horses in reward for such bravery. Of course, the question of Beowulf’s
audience remains as vexed as its date;172 the people listening to or reading the poem may not
have been in a position to bequeath studfarms or flashy horses. After a certain point in AngloSaxon history, however, it seems unlikely that even monks would have been completely
unaware of quality horses achieved by expensive breeding programs, for, as I have noted,
bishops owned studfarms, and church land, if not church personnel, was involved in the
business of horse breeding by the ninth century. As a result, these non-individualised, dun yet
treasured horses in Beowulf suggest a poet living potentially quite early in the Anglo-Saxon
period, but certainly — if there can be any certainty in this issue — not later than the tenth
century.
36
My main concern is not, of course, to date the poem but rather to understand the
depiction of its horses. The evidence presented in this investigation suggests that the poem
presents a coherent image of a certain type of horse. Unfortunately, this apparently coherent
image does not match up easily with the evidence from other sources. Tacitus’ sacred white
horses possess no place in the world of the poem, and the black stallions of later Anglo-Saxon
wills are similarly alien; an audience from either ancient Germania or late Anglo-Saxon
England would be equally puzzled by Hrothgar’s gifts. It is, of course, clear that the poet
intends to describe a world in the distance past (in geardagum). It is not clear, however, how a
late poet would have known to colour that world by describing dun horses as royal gifts.
I cannot, of course, answer questions that have defeated greater scholars than I for over a
century. Nevertheless, I can say that the horses described in Beowulf are of the following type:
relatively small, dun animals, perhaps prized for dappled markings, which derive from a herd
of horses bred without the advantage of foreign blood and which are nevertheless considered to
be objects of prestige. If these animals are equivalent to the Fjord Pony, they were treasured
thoroughbreds, despite their superficial similarities with feral horses like the equae silvestrae
described in Domesday Book and present-day Exmoor ponies. Regardless, they contrast
strongly with the evidence for the breeding of horses in the late Anglo-Saxon period. Although
this contrast may not allow us to date the poem, it is a contrast that we can expect an AngloSaxon audience, especially the relatively late audience for the manuscript, to have perceived,
and one that must have coloured its reception of the poem.
37
1
I am grateful to Carole Biggam, Roberta Frank, Sarah Larratt Keefer, Sean Miller and
Andrew Scheil for their corrections and advice; their contributions have greatly improved
this article. Any remaining errors of fact or judgement are, of course, my own.
2
Information about this site is available in the Suffolk County Council report on the RAF
Lakenheath Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at
www.suffolkcc.gov.uk/departments/e_and_t/archaeology/eriswell/.
3
H. Härke, ‘Changing Symbols in a Changing Society: The Anglo-Saxon Weapon Burial
Rite in the Seventh Century’, in The Age of Sutton Hoo: The Seventh Century in North
Western Europe, ed. M. Carver (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 149–65.
4
For warnings regarding the danger of focusing exclusively on status to explain objects
buried in Anglo-Saxon graves, however, see E. Pader, Symbolism, Social Relations and
the Interpretation of Mortuary Remains, BAR 130 (Oxford, 1982), pp. 53–4 and G. Fisher,
‘Style and Socio-political Organization: A Preliminary Study from Early Anglo-Saxon
England’, in Power and Politics in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland, eds. S. T. Driscoll
and M. R. Nieke (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 128–44.
5
For discussion of the translation of these words, see below, pp. 00-00. All citations from
Beowulf are taken from Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. F. Klaeber, 3rd ed.
(Lexington, MA, 1950). Citations from Old English poetry other than Beowulf can be
found in ASPR. All translations are my own unless otherwise stated.
6
See especially M. Jankovich, They Rode into Europe, trans. A. Dent (London, 1971); R.
H. C. Davis The Medieval Warhorse: Origin, Development and Redevelopment (London,
1989); idem, ‘Did the Anglo-Saxons Have Warhorses?’, in Weapons and Warfare in
Anglo-Saxon England, ed. S. Chadwick Hawkes, Oxford University Committee for
Archaeology 21 (Oxford, 1989), pp.141–4; A. Hyland, The Medieval Warhorse from
38
Byzantium to the Crusades (Stroud, 1994); S. Larratt Keefer, ‘Hwær Cwom Mearh? The
Horse in Anglo-Saxon England’, JMH 22 (1996), 115–34; C. Gladitz, Horse Breeding in
the Medieval World (Dublin, 1997).
7
D. Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Paganism (London, 1992), pp. 101–3, 137 and 151; J. D.
Richards, ‘Anglo-Saxon Symbolism’, in The Age of Sutton Hoo: The Seventh Century in
North-Western Europe, ed. M. Carver (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 131–47, at 139.
8
‘It is also characteristic of the race to seek predictions and warnings from horses. [These
animals] are nourished at public expense in the same [sacred] groves and woods
[mentioned earlier]; they are white and have no contact with worldly labour. Once they are
burdened with the sacred chariot, the priest and king or prince of the state accompany
them and observe their neighing and snorting. No other augury commands greater faith,
not only among the common people, but also among the nobles and among the priests. For
they think that they are the servants of the gods and share their knowledge’. Text is taken
from Cornelii Taciti: De Origine et Situ Germanorum, ed. J. G. C. Anderson (Oxford,
1938). For further discussion of this passage, see Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Paganism, pp. 22–
7.
9
See Bulletin number 8 (July 1993) of the Sutton Hoo Research Committee, pp. 11–18,
collected in Sutton Hoo Research Committee Bulletins 1983–93, ed. M. O. H. Carver
(Woodbridge, 1993). Cf. also the more discursive discussion in M. Carver, Sutton Hoo:
Burial Ground of Kings? (London, 1998), pp. 110–13. Seven other horse burials are
discussed in Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Paganism, pp. 101–2.
10
Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Paganism, pp. 133–7.
11
For an example of such a reasonable, educated reconstruction, see Carver, Sutton Hoo, pp.
112–13.
12
Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Paganism, p. 173.
39
13
See R. North, Heathen Gods in Old English Literature, CSASE 22 (Cambridge, 1997),
104–5.
14
For discussion of pieces of horses apparently buried as joints of meat, see Wilson, AngloSaxon Paganism, p. 101. For discussion of the horse found decapitated, see D. Powlesland,
‘Excavations at Heslerton, North Yorkshire, 1978–82’, ArchJ 143 (1986), 53–173, at 163.
15
‘deliberated over a plan, what would be best for brave-hearted ones to attempt against the
dangerous attacks’.
16
‘The Voyage of Ohthere’ refers to ploughing with a horse in the context of unusual and
limited agricultural practices: see The Old English Orosius, ed. J. Bately, EETS ss 6
(London, 1980), I.i (p. 15). In general horses were not widely used for ploughing until the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. See Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 155; J. Langdon,
Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation (Cambridge, 1986), p. 22; L. White, Jr,
Mediaeval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1962), pp. 59–69.
17
Unlike in Mongol culture; for description of this use of horses, see Gladitz, Horse
Breeding, pp. 78–84.
18
Theodore’s Penitential suggests that the practice of eating horses was known but
uncommon: Hors we ne forbeodað, ac hit is ungewunelio to etanne ‘we do not forbid [the
eating of] horse [meat], but it is not customary to eat [it]’ (II.xi.4), in Die Canones
Theodori Cantuariensis und ihrer Überlieferungsformen, ed. P. W. Finsterwalder,
Untersuchungen zu den Bussbuchern des 7, 8 und 9 Jahrhunderts 1 (Weimar, 1929). Horse
bones with signs of butchery have been found: see J. Clutton-Brock, ‘The Animal
Resources’, in The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. D. M. Wilson (Cambridge,
1976), pp. 373–92, at 383.
19
See, for example, VI Æthelstan 6, where the price of a good horse is set at half a pound,
while that of the ox and cow are set at a mancus and twenty shillings respectively. The
40
different value can also be inferred from the different level of compensation awarded for
loss in a different law code. In The Laws of the Dunsæte 7, horses are compensated with
between twelve and thirty shillings, while the ploughing oxen and milk-producing cow
call for only thirty and twenty-four pence respectively. See also below (pp. 00 and 00) for
further discussion of these two texts. All citations from Anglo-Saxon law codes are taken
from Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. F. Liebermann, vol. 1 (Halle, 1903) and will be
cited according to his titles and section numbers. The value of a shilling varied but was
usually between four and five pence; a mancus was worth thirty pence (H. Munro
Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions (New York, 1905), pp. 12–20 and 23–4). I
am grateful to Sean Miller for private communications regarding more recent
considerations of the values of these coins.
20
Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 154.
21
For these and the following terms, see A Thesaurus of Old English, ed. J. Roberts and C.
Kay with L. Grundy, 2 vols., King’s College London Medieval Studies 11 (London,
1995), s.v. Horse.
22
The demands on such an animal were greater than those upon a cart horse; see A. A. Dent,
‘The Early Horseshoe’, Antiquity 41 (1967), 61–3.
23
The existence of the Anglo-Saxon warhorse is not crucial or central to my argument, but
R. H. C. Davis’ proposal that the Anglo-Saxons possessed warhorses by the time that the
Normans invaded seems convincing. See Davis, ‘Warhorses?’, pp.141–4; idem., Medieval
Warhorse, pp. 75–6. Cf. also Keefer’s discussion of the Bayeux tapestry, in ‘Hwær Cwom
Mearh?’, pp. 129–32 and J. Graham-Campbell’s analysis of the archaeological evidence of
the tenth and eleventh centuries in ‘Anglo-Scandinavian Equestrian Equipment in
Eleventh-Century England’, Anglo-Norman Studies XIV: Proceedings of the Battle
Conference 1991, ed. M. Chibnall (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 77–89, at 88.
41
24
For blanca, see Dictionary of Old English, ed. A. C. Amos, A. diPaolo Healey, J. Holland,
C. Frantzen, D. McDougall, I. McDougall, N. Speirs and P. Thompson. (Toronto, 1988– ),
s.v. blanca. For mearh and wicg, see J. R. Clark-Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary,
4th ed., MART 14 (Toronto, 1894) and H. Sweet, The Student’s Dictionary of AngloSaxon (Oxford, 1896) s.v.v. mearh and wicg. For discussion of poetic terms, see R. Frank,
‘Mere and Sund: Two Sea-Changes in Beowulf’, in Modes of Interpretation: Essays in
honor of Stanley B. Greenfield, eds. P. Rugg Brown, G. Ronan Crampton and F. C.
Robinson (Toronto, 1986), pp. 153–72, at 153–4; M. S. Griffith, ‘Poetic Language and the
Paris Psalter: The Decay of the Old English Tradition’, ASE 20 (1991), 167–86.
25
R. Frank, Old Norse Court Poetry: The Dróttkvæt Stanza, Islandica 42 (Ithaca, 1978), pp.
39–41.
26
‘One must compensate for a horse with thirty shillings or else clear oneself of [the
offence]; for a mare [one must compensate] with twenty shillings and the same for a
wintersteal; for a wild weorf [one must compensate with] twelve shillings.’
27
For example, Tunc viii equi in halla, modo ix ‘previously there were eight horses
associated with the hall; now there are nine’ (Domesday Book fol. 416a, describing the
town of Acton in Babergh Hundred). For text, see Domesday Book 34: Suffolk, Part Two,
ed. A. Rumble (London, 1986). It has been suggested that horses associated with the hall
were designated for riding or breeding purposes; see B. A. Lees, ‘Introduction to the
Suffolk Domesday’, in The Victorian History of the County of Suffolk, ed. W. Page, vol. 1
(London, 1911), 357–411, at 407–8.
28
See, respectively, Thesaurus of Old English, ed. Roberts et al., s.v. Horse and An AngloSaxon Dictionary Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth, ed. J.
Bosworth, ed. and enlarged by T. N. Toller, with revised and enlarged addenda by A.
42
Campbell, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1898-1921), s.v. wintersteal (this latter work will hereafter be
referred to as ‘Bosworth-Toller’).
29
See Bosworth-Toller, s.v. weorf and discussion in A. S. Napier and W. H. Stevenson, The
Crawford Collection of Early Charters and Documents now in the Bodleian Library,
Anecdota Oxoniensia, Mediaeval and Modern Ser. 7 (Oxford, 1895), pp. 129–30.
30
Liebermann dates The Laws of the Dunsæte ‘925–1000; c.935?’. P. Wormald suggests a
time c. 930 (The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, Volume I:
Legislation and its Limits (Oxford, 1999), p. 382).
31
See H. C. Darby, Domesday England (Cambridge, 1977), p. 164. The meanings of these
terms might have varied geographically; ‘rouncey’, for example, was most common in
Suffolk. See H. C. Darby, The Domesday Geography of Eastern England (Cambridge,
1971), p. 200.
32
Gladitz, Horse Breeding, pp. 155–8.
33
Horses are not especially fertile so are unlikely to create a burgeoning population without
help. See A. Hyland, Equus: The Horse in the Roman World (London, 1990), p. 31. Cf.
also Davis, Medieval Warhorse, p. 43.
34
For the former, see, for example, Domesday Book fols. 288b and 359a, referring to
Mildenhall in Lackford Hundred and Long Melford in Babergh Hundred (in Domesday
Book 34: Suffolk, Part One, ed. A. Rumble (London, 1986)). For the latter, see, for
example, Liber Exoniensis fols. 134 and 316 (cited in Lennard, Rural England, p. 266).
For discussion of these animals, see Keefer, ‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, pp. 132–3; Gladitz,
Horse Breeding, p. 143–5; Darby, Domesday England, p. 165; and Reginald Lennard,
Rural England 1086–1135: A Study of Social and Agrarian Conditions (Oxford, 1959), p.
266. For discussion of the lack of distinction between equae indomitae ‘unbroken mares’
and equae silvestrae ‘forest mares’, see Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 144 and H. C. Darby
43
and R. Welldon Finn, The Domesday Geography of South-West England (Cambridge,
1967), pp. 206 and 337.
35
Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 146.
36
R. Lydekker, The Horse and its Relatives (London, 1912), p. 105.
37
J. Clutton-Brock, Horse Power: A History of the Horse and the Donkey in Human
Societies (London, 1992), p. 62; cf. discussion in Lydekker, The Horse, pp. 104–16. Dun
is a genetically dominant colour; perhaps because of its consequent commonness, it was
avoided by English breeders in the later Middle Ages, at least (Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p.
203).
38
For discussion of the Tarpan, see M. Bongianni and C. Mori, Horses of the World, trans.
S. Pleasance (London, 1986), p. 32. For description and brief history of Przewalski’s
Horse, see ibid. p. 33 and Clutton-Brock, Horse Power, pp. 30–3. Cf. also the entry for
Przewalkski’s Horse on the ‘Breeds of Livestock’ page published by the Department of
Animal Science at Oklahoma State University (www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/).
39
Clutton-Brock, Horse Power, p. 61; Lydekker, The Horse, p. 102.
40
As opposed to feral horses — animals which ‘live in a self-sustained population after a
history of domestication’ (Clutton-Brock, Horse Power, p. 19).
41
For possible distinctions between horses considered ‘beasts of the forest’ as opposed to the
free ranging but owned property detailed in Domesday Book, see Gladitz, Horse Breeding,
p. 144. For laws excluding horses from the ‘beasts of the forest’, however, see PseudoCnut’s ‘Constitutiones de Foresta’ 27: Sunt et alia quamplurima animalia, que, quanquam
infra septa foreste uiuunt et oneri et cure mediocrium subiacent, foreste tamen nequaquam
censeri possunt, qualia sunt equi, bubali, uacce et similia ‘There are many other animals
which, although they live within fences in the forest and are subject to only a small
amount of labour and exertion, nevertheless can in no way be considered to be of the
44
forest, such as horses, bulls, cows and the like’. Liebermann dates this code ‘1130–1217
(1185?)’. Wormald suggests that it may go back to Angevin times but has little to do with
the development of Anglo-Saxon law (Making of English Law, p. 407 n. 661).
42
See Clutton-Brock, Horse Power, pp. 38–9.
43
Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 163; Clutton-Brock, Horse Power, p. 39.
44
Lennard, Rural England, p. 266.
45
Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 142; Hyland, Medieval Warhorse, p. 67; A. Dent and D.
Goodall, A History of British Native Ponies from the Bronze Age to the Present Day
(London, 1988), pp. 9–31.
46
Hyland, Equus, pp. 43–4. Cf. also Davis, ‘Warhorses?’, p. 141.
47
For discussion of the ideal shape of a horse, see Hyland, Equus, pp. 6–10; Bongianni and
Mori, Horses of the World, pp. 9–11.
48
Detailed proof of these costs is unfortunately available only for a later time (1293); see
Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 153.
49
Again, details are available only for later times; see Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 149.
50
Davis, Medieval Warhorse, pp. 34–7.
51
Jankovich, They Rode into Europe, pp. 37–8.
52
Bongianni and Mori, Horses of the World, p. 194; cf. also Jankovich, They Rode into
Europe, pp. 37–8 and Davis, Medieval Warhorse, pp. 133–4.
53
Gladitz, Horse Breeding, pp. 162–3.
54
The question of whether the distinctions depicted in manuscript illustrations and the
Bayeux Tapestry reflect distinctions in the real world remains uncertain, but see the
discussion in Keefer, ‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, pp. 119–21 and 129–31.
55
See The Reeve’s Tale 4064–6 and 4080–1.
45
56
Keefer argues that such imports may have begun to arrive in England, albeit initially by
accident, in the late ninth century (‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, p. 115).
57
For warnings regarding the uncertainty of osteological archaeology, see S. Payne, ‘On the
Interpretation of Bone Samples from Archaeological Sites’, in Papers in Economic
Prehistory, ed. E. S. Higgs (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 65–81. For a more recent overview of
what the discipline can determine, see D. Brothwell, ‘Ancient Calcified Tissue Research:
A View to the 21st Century’, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology pilot issue (1990),
2-21. Note also the warnings regarding the estimation of size from (human) skeletal
remains in Tony Waldron, ‘A Note on the Estimation of Height from Long-Bone
Measurements’, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 8 (1998), 75-7.
58
See A. Mallinson, letter to The Times, 11 October 1997, cited in B. Levick, ‘Anglo-Saxon
Horseman Discovered in Suffolk’, located on the Angelcynn website:
www.geocities.com/Athens/2471/horsewar.html. Cf. also Suffolk County Council’s
website describing progress of the archaeological investigation.
59
In ‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, Keefer cites Carver as stating the height of the Sutton Hoo
horse as eleven hands high (p. 117). Two years later, Carver himself states the size of the
horse as fourteen hands high (Sutton Hoo, p. 112).
60
For some acknowledged guesswork about the Sutton Hoo horse’s genotype, see Keefer,
‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, pp. 117–18. Note that this guesswork was based on the
assumption that the horse stood only eleven hands high.
61
See, for example, Langdon, Horses, p. 18.
62
‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, p. 123.
63
‘When the king’s thegns who were behind him heard in the morning that the king was
slain, they rode there, with his aldorman Osric, his thegn Wiferth and the men whom he
had left behind earlier’. Text is taken from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MS A, ed. J. M.
46
Bately, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition, ed. D. Dumville and S.
Keynes 3 (Cambridge, 1986).
64
‘This man [Adulf, son of Baldwin, count of Flanders], when he had set out the requests of
the suitor at a meeting of the leaders at Abingdon, brought forth extremely ample gifts,
which might immediately sate the desire of anyone, however greedy: odours of spices
whose like had never before been seen in England; honourable examples of gems,
especially emeralds, in whose greenness the reflected sun might enliven the eyes of those
standing nearby with a charming light; many race-horses with trappings, champing the
yellow gold beneath their teeth, as Virgil says…’ Text is taken from William of
Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, The History of the English Kings, ed. R. A. B.
Mynors, with R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, OMT, 2 vols., (Oxford, 1998), I, 218.
Cf. discussion in Keefer, ‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, p. 125.
65
Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 202: ‘If one of the parents is better bred than the other, the
better bred will be significantly pre-potent due to the accumulated influence of its
ancestry… The influence of first class blood in a stallion may be quite enormous.’
66
Graham-Campbell, ‘Anglo-Scandinavian Equestrian Equipment’, pp. 88–9.
67
See Davis, Medieval Warhorse, pp. 73–4; Hyland, Medieval Warhorse, pp. 76–8; Keefer,
‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, pp. 125–8.
68
‘This is Ælfgar’s will. First, that I grant my lord two belted swords and two rings, both of
gold worth fifty mancuses, and three stallions and three shields and three spears’. For text,
see Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. D. Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930), p. 6 (no. II).
69
Ibid., pp. 58–60 (no. XX). I translate fagan as ‘dappled’ following Keefer’s discussion in
‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, p. 127.
47
70
In the later Middle Ages, the two colours most prized by English breeders were black and
bay (Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 203). Note also that Tacitus ascribes to the continental
Germanic tribes a preference for white horses (see above, p. 00).
71
Keefer, ‘Hwær Cwom Mearh?’, p. 127, but see discussion of dappling below, p. 00.
72
‘With regard to our prices: a horse [is to be paid for at the price of] a half pound, if it is of
sufficient quality; and if it should be smaller [or worse], let one pay according to its value,
[judging by] its appearance, and according to how much the one who owns it values it,
unless he has a witness [to vouch] that it is as good as he says; and let him have the
additional payment that we obtain there… And we say regarding our manservant which
men own: if someone should steal him, one should pay for him with a half pound.’ Under
William I a stallion, bull and boar could stand as wergild (‘Laws of William’ 9,1).
73
Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Whitelock, p. 60 (no. XX).
74
Ibid., p. 32 (no. XIII).
75
Ibid., p. 50 (no. XVII).
76
‘Thus what is proper for an earl, that is, eight horses — four saddled and four unsaddled
— and four helmets, four mail-coats, eight spears, the same number of shields, four
swords and two hundred mancuses of gold. And then for the king’s thegns, who are closest
to him: four horses — two saddled and two unsaddled — and two swords, four spears, the
same number of shields, a helmet, a mail-coat and one mancus of gold. And for a medial
thegn: one horse and its gear and his weapon or his price among the West Saxons, and
among the Mercians two pounds, and among the East Angles two pounds’.
77
Cf. Davis, Medieval Warhorse, pp. 74–5 and his discussion of whether the Anglo-Saxons
fought on horseback, pp. 75–8; cf. also idem., ‘Warhorses?’
78
For discussion of the training of Roman warhorses, see Hyland, Equus, pp. 101–10.
79
Medieval Warhorse, pp. 76–7; ‘Warhorses?’, pp. 143–4.
48
80
‘This is Bishop Ælfwold’s will.... He grants to his lord four horses, two saddled and two
unsaddled. To the prince [he grants] forty mancuses of gold and the wild horses on the
land at Ashburn.... To Alfwold the monk [he grants] twenty mancuses of gold and one
horse and one tent. To Byrhtmær the priest [he grants] twenty mancuses of gold and one
horse. To his three kinsmen, Eadwold, Æthelnoth and Grimkytel, [he grants] twenty
mancuses of gold each and one horse each.... And to Boia [he grants] one horse.... And to
Leofwine Polga and Mælpatrik [he grants] one horse each, and to each of his retainers [he
grants] the riding horse which he had loaned to him....’ My selection here omits most of
the will. Text is taken from Napier and Stevenson, Crawford Collection, pp. 23–4 (no. 10);
see also their notes, pp. 125–33.
81
Although herds of wild mares might not always be connected to studfarms, Lennard
suggests that the ‘forest mares of the king’ at Kingston mentioned in Domesday Book
probably belong to a stud farm later granted by William I to Westminster Abbey (Rural
England, p. 266).
82
‘The first thing is that he grants to his lord his heriot, which is two hundred marks of red
gold and two silver cups and four horses — the best I have — and two swords — the best I
have — and four shields and four spears’. Text is taken from Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed.
Whitelock, p. 2 (no. I).
83
Lennard, Rural England, p. 266.
84
‘I, Ceolwulf, king of the Mercians by the generous grace of God, have thought to give
something for my own sake in [the form of] alms, so that I might receive a share of the
eternal reward. Thus, having been asked by Wærferth, the bishop of the Hwicce and the
kin in Worcester, I have granted perpetually, with the unanimous consent of all my
bishops and leaders and also all the chief men of our race, that the whole diocese of the
Hwicce should remain absolved and secure from [the responsibility of] pasturing the
49
king’s horses and those who lead them’. Text is taken from BCS II, 159–60 (no. 540). I
have silently substituted ‘w’ for ‘wyn’. Cf. discussion in Davis, Medieval Warhorse, p. 72
85
Later ecclesiasts were similarly involved in horse breeding; see Gladitz, Horse Breeding,
p. 174.
86
Hyland estimates that there were 280 000 ‘actual and prospective warhorses’ within the
Frankish Empire, in addition to horses used for other purposes (Medieval Warhorse, p.
64).
87
Cf. the discussion of ‘quality’ in Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 211.
88
‘Sometimes those brave in battle let their dun horses leap and run in competition,
wherever the country roads seemed good and known for their excellence.’
89
Yellow: J. A. Garnett, Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Poem (London, 1910), p. 27. Fallow: M.
Alexander, Beowulf: A Verse Translation (London, 1973), p. 78; J. Porter, Beowulf: Text
and Translation (Pinner, 1991), p. 61; W. Morris and A. J. Wyatt, The Tale of Beowulf
Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats (London, 1904), p. 50; B. Thorpe,
Beowulf together with Widsith and the Fight at Finnesburg in the Benjamin Thorpe
Transcription and Word-for-Word Translation (Woodbury, NY, 1962), p. 58. Pale: M.
Alexander, ed., Beowulf (London, 1995), p. 57; G. Bone, Beowulf in Modern Verse with
an Essay and Pictures (Oxford, 1945), p. 34; cf. also M. Heyne, ed. Beówulf (Paderborn,
1888), who glosses fealu as ‘fahl’ (pale) or ‘falb’ (dun). Russet: J. Earle, The Deeds of
Beowulf: An English Epic of the Eighth Century Done into Modern Prose (Oxford, 1892),
p. 29. Bay: Klaeber suggests that ‘bay’ is a particular meaning of fealu which applies only
to horses (Beowulf, p. 327); see also J. R. Clark Hall, Beowulf and the Finnsburg
Fragment, new ed. (London, 1940), p. 63 and K. Crossley-Holland, Beowulf (London,
1968), p. 56. Dappled: E. Morgan, Beowulf (Berkeley, CA, 1966), p. 24. Brown: E. Talbot
Donaldson, Beowulf: The Donaldson Translation, ed. J. F. Tuso (New York, 1975), p. 16.
50
Tawny, dusky: B. Mitchell and F. C. Robinson, eds., Beowulf: An Edition (Oxford, 1998),
s.v. fealu, p. 257. Red and brown and pale yellow: B. Raffel, Beowulf (New York, 1963),
p. 50.
90
D. Wright, Beowulf (Harmondsworth, 1957), p. 47.
91
R. L. Schichler, ‘As Whiteness Fades to Fallow: Riding into Time in Beowulf’, In
Geardagum 14 (1993), 13–25.
92
C. B. McClelland, ‘Horses in Beowulf: A Horse of a Different Color’, Tennessee Stud. in
Lit. 11 (1966), 177–87, at 180.
93
‘Hue’ is what Modern English speakers mean by ‘colour’: a band on the visible section of
the electromagnetic spectrum. ‘Tone’ indicates the amount of black or white mixed with a
hue; mixture with black creates ‘dark’ colours, while mixture with white creates ‘pale’ or
‘light’ colours. Saturation indicates the amount of grey mixed with a hue; little or no grey
results in ‘vivid’ or ‘bright’ colours, while increasing amounts of grey create ‘dull’ or
‘greyish’ colours. ‘Surface effects’ can include, for example, ‘shininess’. These definitions
are taken from C. P. Biggam, Blue in Old English: An Interdisciplinary Semantic Study
(Amsterdam, 1997), pp. 15–16.
94
J. Lyons, ‘Colour in Language’, in Colour: Art and Science, eds. T. Lamb and J. Bourriau
(Cambridge, 1995), pp. 194–224.
95
The original theory of Berlin and Kay proposes that, as they evolve, all languages acquire
‘basic colour-terms’ in the following order: black, white, red, green or yellow, yellow or
green, blue, brown and then any or all of purple, pink, orange and grey (B. Berlin and P.
Kay, Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (Berkeley, CA, 1969), pp. 14–
36). For discussion of this theory in the context of Old English, and particularly for
discussion of the emendations of Berlin and Kay’s original theory, see C. P. Biggam,
‘Sociolinguistic Aspects of Old English Colour Lexemes’, ASE 24 (1995), 51–65; idem.,
51
Blue, pp. 23–4 and 58–69. Cf. also N. F. Barley, ‘Old English Colour Classification:
Where do Matters Stand?’, ASE 3 (1974), 15–28, at 17–19.
96
Barley, ‘Old English Colour Classification’, p. 19. See, however, Biggam’s criticism of
Barley’s chart (Blue, p. 61).
97
L. D. Lerner, ‘Colour Words in Anglo-Saxon’, MLR 46 (1951), 246–9, at 247. Cf. W. E.
Mead, ‘Color in Old English Poetry’, PMLA 14 (1899), 169–206, at 174–5; Barley, ‘Old
English Colour Classification’, p. 17; L. Bragg, ‘Color Words in Beowulf’, Proceedings of
the Patristic, Mediaeval and Renaissance Conference 6 (1982), 47–55, at 47; B. C. Raw,
The Art and Background of Old English Poetry (London, 1978), p. 52.
98
See Biggam, Blue, p. 51, n. 2 and pp. 52–5. Note especially the ambiguity of the term
‘brightness’.
99
For discussion of fealu in particular, see R. Barnes, ‘Horse Colors in Anglo-Saxon Poetry’,
PQ 39 (1960), 510–12; Bragg, ‘Color Words in Beowulf,’ pp. 48–50; Lerner, ‘Colour
Words in Anglo-Saxon’, pp. 247–8; McClelland, ‘Horses in Beowulf’, pp. 180–3; Mead,
‘Colors in Old English Poetry’, pp. 198–9; Schichler, ‘As Whiteness Fades’, pp. 22–5;
Raw, Art and Background, pp. 52–3 and 55; A. E. H. Swaen, ‘Riddle XIII (XVI)’,
Neophilologus 26 (1941), 228–31, at 230; H. C. Wyld, ‘Diction and Imagery in AngloSaxon Poetry’, Essays and Studies os 11 (1925), 49–91, at 59. This list is not exhaustive;
see further the list in A. Cameron, A. Kingsmill and A. C. Amos, Old English Word
Studies: A Preliminary Author and Word Index, Toronto Old English Series 8 (Toronto,
1983).
100
For waves, see, for example, The Wanderer 46b, Andreas 421a, 1538a and 1589b, The
Gifts of Men 53b, Maxims I 52a, Beowulf 1950a; for shields, see Genesis 2044b; for
wood, see Exeter Riddle 56 9; for flame, see The Phoenix 218a. Cf. discussion in Barley,
‘Old English Colour Classification’, p. 24.
52
101
Mead, ‘Color in Old English Poetry’, p. 198; cf. Lerner, ‘Colour Words’, p. 247. Note that
these meanings restrict themselves to hue.
102
See, for example, Wyld, ‘Diction and Imagery’, p. 59.
103
Art and Background, p. 53. Cf. the argument of Schichler, ‘As Whiteness Fades’, pp. 23–
5.
104
Biggam, Blue, p. 20.
105
Barley, ‘Old English Colour Classification’, p. 21.
106
Ibid., pp. 21–4; Lerner, ‘Colour Words’, p. 247.
107
C. P. Biggam, personal communication. Cf. also Swaen, ‘Riddle XIII’, p. 230;
McClelland, ‘Horses in Beowulf’, pp. 181–2
108
For the identification of this animal as a badger, see Swaen, ‘Riddle XIII’. Cf. also the
summary in ASPR III, p. 329.
109
For the Herbarium, see Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, ed. T. O.
Cockayne, 3 vols., rev. ed. (London, 1961), I, 290 (§163). For Bald’s Leechbook, see ibid.
I, 122 (§49).
110
The reade docce can be identified with a red plant known as Rumex sanguineus (Bloody
Dock, Red-veined dock), and so it seems likely that a contrast in hue was indicated. See P.
Bierbaumer, Der botanische Wortschatz des Altenglischen, 3 vols. (Bern, 1975), I, 47–8.
111
For example, flauum fuluum read (Corpus 6.214, in An Eighth-Century Latin-AngloSaxon Glossary, ed. J. H. Hessels (Cambridge, 1890)); flauum i fuluum read (I Cleopatra
2493, in ‘The Latin-Old English Glossary in MS Cotton Cleopatra A3’, ed. W. G. Stryker,
unpubl. PhD dissertation, Stanford Univ., 1951)); flauum uel fulfum read (Epinal 262, in
Old English Glosses in the Epinal-Erfurt Glossary, ed. J. D. Pheifer (Oxford, 1974)).
112
For example, Aut flaua ðæs fealwan (I Cleopatra 17, in ‘Latin-Old English Glossary’, ed.
Stryker); Fulua sio fealwe (I Cleopatra 2320, in ibid.); fulua sio fealwe (III Cleopatra
53
1511, in ‘The Minor Latin-Old English Glossaries in MS Cotton Cleopatra AIII’, ed J. J.
Quinn, unpubl. PhD. dissertation, Stanford Univ., 1956)).
113
Dictionary definitions for Latin words should not be taken for granted, either.
Unfortunately, due to the limitations of this study, I have had to accept them relatively
unquestioningly and without adequate investigation into the contexts in which they appear
in classical or medieval Latin literature.
114
Harley F969 (in The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary, Edited from British Museum MS
Harley 3376, ed. R. T. Oliphant (The Hague, 1966)).
115
C. P. Biggam, personal communication.
116
Harley B427 (in Harley, ed. Oliphant). Oliphant, based on a suggestion in BosworthToller, suggests that busius is a variant of fuscus ‘dark’ (p. 37, note on line 427). See also I
Cleopatra 794 (in ‘Latin-Old English Glossary’, ed. Stryker). Cf. Swaen, ‘Riddle XIII’, p.
230. Cf. also the collocation of fulvus with aquiluus ‘dark, swarthy’ and bruun in Erfurt 12
(in The Corpus, Epinal, Erfurt and Leyden Glossaries, ed. W. M. Lindsay, Publications of
the Philological Society 8 (London, 1921)).
117
For giluus, see Corpus 7.88 (in Eighth Century Latin-Anglo-Saxon Glossary, ed. Hessels);
Epinal 317 (in Old English Glosses, ed. Pheifer); Erfurt 458 (in ibid.). For crocus, see
Epinal 249 (in ibid.); I Cleopatra 1130 (in ‘Latin-Old English Glossary’, ed. Stryker); II
Cleopatra 657 (in ‘Minor Latin-Old English Glossaries’, ed. Quinn). For succinacius see
Antwerp 1201 (in ‘The Latin-Old English Glossaries in Plantin-Moretus MS 32 and
British Museum MS Additional 32246’, ed. Lowell Kindschi, unpubl. PhD dissertation,
Stanford Univ., 1955). For flabus, see Corpus 6.219 (in Eighth Century Latin-AngloSaxon Glossary, ed. Hessels). For melinus, see Antwerp 477 (in ‘Latin-Old English
Glossaries’, ed. Kindschi); I Cleopatra 4207 (in ‘Latin-Old English Glossary’, ed. Stryker).
For venetus, see Erfurt 1064 (in Old English Glosses, ed. Pheifer).
54
118
I Cleopatra 4122 (in ‘Latin-Old English Glossary, ed. Stryker). For definition of bleoread,
see Biggam, Blue, p. 101.
119
See the references to busius ‘dark’ and niger ‘black’ in glossary entries for fealu above,
pp. 00-0.
120
See, for example, the entries for ‘harvest mouse’ (Micromys minutus), ‘house mouse (Mus
domesticus) and ‘field mouse’ (Apodemus sylvaticus) in Encyclopedia Britannica Online
(www.eb.co.uk).
121
Harley C681 (in Harley, ed. Oliphant); Antwerp 1192 (in ‘Latin-Old English Glossaries’,
ed. Kindschi); I Cleopatra 1539 (in ‘Latin-Old English Glossary’, ed. Stryker).
122
See the entries for ‘red deer’, ‘roe deer’ and ‘fallow deer’ in Encyclopedia Britannica
Online.
123
Harley C911 (in Harley, ed. Oliphant). For Isidore’s comments, see Etymologiae XII.i.48
(in Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W. M.
Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911). See also C. P. Biggam, Grey in Old English: An
Interdisciplinary Semantic Study (London, 1998), p. 97.
124
Cf. W. Ridgeway, The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse (Cambridge,
1905), pp. 120 and 422–3 and McClelland, ‘Horses in Beowulf’, p. 181.
125
Æppelfealu will be discussed further below, pp. 00-00.
126
‘If one dreams that he has or rides on a white horse, that indicates honour. If it seems that
he rides on a black horse, that indicates fear in the mind over property. If it seems that he
rides on a red horse, that indicates the deterioration of property. If it seems that he rides on
a fealu horse…or a grey horse, that is a good dream.’ Text is taken from M. Förster,
‘Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Volkskunde, IX: Das zweite altenglische Traumbuch’,
Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literatur 134 (ns 34) (1916), 264–93.
127
Biggam, Grey, p. 312.
55
128
For discussion of the insertion of the grey horse (which does not appear in the original
Latin text) and the repetition of þæt byð god, see Biggam, Grey, pp. 59–60.
129
See S 495 for fealuwes lea ‘yellow meadow’; Ælfric’s homily on Cuthbert for fealwun
ceosle ‘yellow gravel’ (in Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, The Second Series Text, ed. M.
Godden, EETS ss 5 (London, 1979), 83); Beowulf 916b for fealwe stræte ‘yellow street’.
For further discussion of the latter example, see below, pp. 00-0.
130
See especially K. S. Kiernan, Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript, rev. ed. (Ann Arbor,
MI, 1996), who argues for an eleventh century provenance for the poem (pp. 13–63). Cf.
also some of the arguments in C. Chase, ed. The Dating of Beowulf, 2nd ed. (Toronto,
1997).
131
See, for example, J. R. R. Tolkien, ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’, PBA 22
(1936), 245–95 (repr. in Beowulf, ed. H. Bloom (New York, 1987), pp. 24–5); R. Frank,
‘The Beowulf Poet’s Sense of History’, in The Wisdom of Poetry: Essays in Early English
Literature in honor of Morton W. Bloomfield, ed. L. D. Benson and S. Wenzel
(Kalamazoo, MI, 1982), pp. 53–65; A. G. Brodeur, The Art of Beowulf (Berkeley, 1959),
pp. 132–81; R. W. Hanning, ‘Beowulf as Heroic History’, Medievalia et Humanistica ns 5
(1974), 77–102.
132
See, for example, H. Olafsson, ‘Indo-European Horse Sacrifice in the Book of
Settlements’, Temenos 31 (1995), 127–43; the text is ‘The Horse Race on Dúfunefsskeið’,
in The Book of Settlements. On the other hand, horse racing was evidently practised by
the Anglo-Saxons as well; see Bede’s story of Herebald’s accident (Historia Ecclesiastica
v.6).
133
For overviews of research on oral tradition, see J. M. Foley, The Theory of Oral
Composition: History and Methodology (Bloomington, IN, 1988), pp. 65–74; A. H. Olsen,
‘Oral-Formulaic Research in Old English Studies: I’, Oral Tradition 1 (1986), 548–606
56
and ‘Oral-Formulaic Research in Old English Studies: II’, Oral Tradition 3 (1988), 138–
90; D. H. Green, ‘Orality and Reading: The State of Research in Medieval Studies’,
Speculum 65 (1990), 267–80.
134
For more discussion of this passage, see J. Opland, ‘From Horseback to Monastic Cell:
The Impact on English Literature of the Introduction of Writing’, in Old English Literature
in Context: Ten Essays, ed. J. D. Niles (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 30–43 and 161–63, at 30–
3; N. E. Eliason, ‘The “Improvised Lay” in Beowulf’, PQ 31 (1952), 171–9; R. P. Creed,
‘“...Wel-Hwelc Gecwæþ...”: The Singer as Architect’, Tennessee Stud. in Lit. 11 (1966),
131–43; R. E. Kaske, ‘The Sigemund-Heremod and Hama-Hygelac Passages in Beowulf’,
PMLA 74 (1959), 489–94.
135
Cf. C. B. Hieatt, ‘On Envelope Patterns (Ancient and — Relatively — Modern) and Nonce
Formulas’, in Comparative Research on Oral Traditions: A Memorial for Milman Parry,
ed. J. M. Foley (Columbus, OH, 1987), pp. 245–58; A. C. Bartlett, The Larger Rhetorical
Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry, Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative
Literature 122 (Morningside Heights, NY, 1935), pp. 9–29. In the latter, see especially pp.
20–1, although the focus is slightly different from the present argument. Cf. also the
different interpretation of the envelope in Schichler, ‘As Whiteness Fades’, p. 13.
136
‘Sometimes, racing, the Danes measured the dun streets with their horses.’
137
For discussion of the conservative nature of oral-formulaic poetry, see W. Ong, Orality
and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London, 1982), p. 41.
138
Cf. Mead, ‘Colors in Old English Poetry’, p. 198. For examples, see Andreas 421a and
1538a, Beowulf 1950a, The Battle of Brunanburh 36a, Maxims I 53a, Gifts of Men 53b
and The Wanderer 45b.
139
‘Then the son of Healfdene gave Beowulf a gilded standard as a reward for victory; many
saw the adorned war-banner, a helmet and byrnie, [and] a famous treasure-sword borne
57
before the man. Beowulf accepted the cup on the floor; he had no need to be ashamed of
that wealthy gift in front of the bowsmen. I have not heard of many men giving four goldadorned treasures to another on the ale-bench in a more friendly way! Around the top of
the helmet, the head’s protection, bound with wires, [could] hold a blow out, so that many
hostile leavings [i.e. swords], hardened by striking, could not harm him, when the shieldwarrior had to advance against enemies.’
140
‘Then [Hrothgar], the protector of earls, commanded eight horses wearing ornamented
bridles to be led onto the floor in the enclosure. On one of them stood a saddle adorned
with skilful devices, glorified with treasure; that was the high king’s war-seat whenever
Healfdene’s son wanted to play the game of swords. Never did the warfare of the widely
famous one fail at the front when the slaughter fell. And then the protector of Ing’s friends
conferred on Beowulf possession of both of those things, horses and weapons, and bid him
to enjoy them well. Thus the famous prince, the hoard-guardian, repaid the hero nobly
with war-dress, horses and treasure, so that one who wanted to speak truthfully according
to right could never find fault with them [i.e. the gifts].’
141
As discussed earlier, the poetic term mearh can represent a horse of either gender; it does
not mean ‘mare’.
142
Cf. my discussion of value in natural objects in Representations of the Natural World in
Old English Poetry, CSASE 27 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 30.
143
Cf. the ornate bridle and associated tack found in Mound 17 at Sutton Hoo, where the
ornaments are gilded bronze (Carver, Sutton Hoo, p. 112).
144
G. R. Owen-Crocker, ‘Hawks and Horse-Trappings: The Insignia of Rank’, in The Battle
of Maldon AD 991, ed. D. G. Scragg (Oxford, 1991), pp. 220–37, at 232.
145
‘I heard that four horses, swift, dappled dun and all alike, followed in the track of those
treasures; he conferred this gift of horses and treasures on him.’
58
146
Examples include Sorel ‘sorrel’ — i.e. reddish-brown or light chestnut (1379), Passecerf
‘overtake the deer’ (1380) and Veillantif ‘valiant’ (1153, 2032, 2127, 2160 and 2167). For
text see La Chanson de Roland, ed. F. Whitehead (Oxford, 1962).
147
See, for example, the story of how Charles acquired Tencendur ‘ash grey’ (La Chanson de
Roland 2993–5).
148
‘The archbishop begins the battle. He mounts the horse which he took from Grossaille,
who was a king whom he killed in Denmark. The warhorse is swift and lively, hollow in
the hoof and flat in the leg, short in the thigh and large in the croup, long in the flank and
well elevated in the spine; his tail is white and his mane is yellow; his ears are small; his
head is completely brownish yellow. There is no animal who can go as well as he.’ Cf.
discussion in Davis, Medieval Warhorse, p. 58.
149
Romance of Horn 1424a (§71) and 3076 (§148). Text is taken from The Romance of
Horn, ed. M. K. Pope, 2 vols., Anglo-Norman Texts 9–10 (Oxford, 1955). Translations are
taken from The Birth of Romance: An Anthology, trans. J. Weiss (London, 1992), pp. 33
and 71.
150
Dictionary of Old English, ed. Amos et al., s.v. æppelfealu.
151
For virtually untranslated choices, that is, ‘apple-fallow’ or ‘fallow as apples’, see, for
example, Earle, The Deeds of Beowulf, p. 71; Morris and Wyatt, Tale of Beowulf, p. 124;
Thorpe, Beowulf, p. 145; Donaldson, Beowulf, p. 38. For ‘bay’, see, for example, Morgan,
Beowulf, p. 59; Raffel, Beowulf, p. 90; Wright, Beowulf, p. 78; Alexander, Beowulf:
Verse Translation, p. 119. For combinations of these elements, see, for example, CrossleyHolland, Beowulf, p. 94 (‘bays, apple-brown’); Bone, Beowulf, p. 63 (‘apple-fallow’, with
a note explaining ‘The red-yellow colour of apples; bay’).
152
Ridgeway, Origin and Influence, p. 120; McClelland, ‘Horses in Beowulf’, pp. 182–3;
Barnes, ‘Horse Colors’, pp. 511–12; Bragg, ‘Color Words’, pp. 49–50.
59
153
W. W. Skeat, for example, notes that the resemblance between ‘dapple’ and ‘apple’ is
coincidental; see An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (Oxford, 1910),
s.v. dapple. As æppel can mean ‘what is round as an apple’ (Bosworth-Toller) or even
‘anything round’ (Clark-Hall, Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary), it is certainly possible
that it indicates the round marks that characterise a dappled horse. Oculus ‘eye’ describes
such markings in Latin (C. P. Biggam, personal communication).
154
Cf. Barnes, ‘Horse Colors’, p. 512.
155
Gladitz, Horse Breeding, p. 158; Davis, Medieval Warhorse, p. 18; Graham-Campbell,
‘Anglo-Scandinavian Equestrian Equipment’, p. 77.
156
Beowulf provides no other evidence of fighting on horseback, but it is interesting to find
that a saddle was hildesetl heahcyninges, / ðonne sweorda gelac sunu Healfdenes / efnan
wolde ‘the high-king’s war-seat, whenever Healfdene’s son wanted to play the game of
swords’ (1039–41a).
157
His use of this horse is not specified. Note that Hygelac, Beowulf’s uncle, is described in
the Liber monstrorum as being so large that no horse could bear him (Liber monstrorum
I.2, in A. Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the BeowulfManuscript (Cambridge, 1995), p. 258). The poem makes no comment on Hygelac’s size,
but Hrothgar’s coastguard notes that Beowulf is bigger than any man he has ever seen
(247b–248a), and Beowulf is never depicted as riding in the poem; although Hrothgar
rides to Grendel’s mere, Beowulf may or may not be a member of the ‘foot-soldiers’ that
accompany him (1399–1402a).
158
‘I heard that he gave to Hygd the neck-jewel, that wondrous and rare treasure which
Wealhtheow, the prince’s daughter, gave to him, and three horses with it, graceful and
bright-saddled. Afterwards her breast was honoured because of the receiving of that
jewel.’
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159
McClelland’s argument that there are two classes of horses described in Beowulf would
have Hrothgar presenting the hero with animals inferior to those ridden by his own nobles
(‘Horses in Beowulf’, p. 180). Such a gift would be an insult, not a reward.
160
See the entry on the Fjord Pony at the ‘Breeds of Livestock’ webpage.
161
M. Bongianni, The Macdonald Encyclopedia of Horses (London, 1988), number 131 (no
page number).
162
‘Breeds of Livestock’ webpage.
163
Bongianni and Mori, Horses of the World, p. 93. A similar refusal to breed with other
types of horses can be observed in Przewalski’s Horse, which also maintains the same type
of colouring; see ibid. p. 33.
164
For example, the hybrid resulting from an Arabian crossed with any breed of a similar size
is invariably taller than either parent (Hyland, Equus, p. 26).
165
The Tarpan, one of the known varieties of wild horses, was characterised by a wavy mane
and tail (Clutton-Brock, Horse Power, pp. 28–30).
166
Keefer notes that Byrhtnoth’s horse carried a rider over six feet in height (‘Hwær Cwom
Mearh?’, pp. 121–2). For discussion of Byrhtnoth’s height, see M. Deegan and S. Rubin,
‘Byrhtnoth’s Remains: A Reassessment of his Stature’, in The Battle of Maldon AD 991,
ed. Scragg, pp. 289–93, at 292.
167
For discussion of kingship, see, for example, L. L. Schücking, ‘The Ideal of Kingship in
Beowulf’, in An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism (Notre Dame, 1963), pp. 35–49; T. D.
Hill, ‘Scyld Scefing and the “Stirps Regia”: Pagan Myth and Christian Kingship in
Beowulf’, in Magister Regis: Studies in honor of Robert Earl Kaske, ed. A. Groos (New
York, 1986), pp. 37–47; M. J. Swanton, Crisis and Development in Germanic Society,
700–800: Beowulf and the Burden of Kingship, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 333
(Göppingen, 1982); P. Clemoes, Interactions of Thought and Language in Old English
61
Poetry, CSASE 12 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 3–67. For discussion of generosity, see, for
example, S. B. Greenfield, ‘“Gifstol” and Goldhoard in Beowulf’, in Old English Studies
in honour of John C. Pope, ed. R. B. Burlin and E. B. Irving, Jr (Toronto, 1974), pp. 107–
17; C. Donahue, ‘Potlatch and Charity: Notes on the Heroic in Beowulf’, in Anglo-Saxon
Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard, ed. L. E. Nicholson and D.
Warwick Frese (Notre Dame, 1975), pp. 23–40; J. M. Hill, ‘Beowulf and the Danish
Succession: Gift Giving as Occasion for Complex Gesture’, Medievalia et Humanistica ns
11 (1982), 177–97.
168
‘[Oswine] had given bishop Aidan a most excellent horse, on which he could either cross
the flood of rivers or, if some other necessity should arise, make his way, although he was
accustomed to walk. A short time afterward, when a beggar asking for alms met him, he
dismounted and offered to give the horse to the beggar, just as it was, royally apparelled,
for he was very tender-hearted and a fosterer of the poor and just like a father to the
wretched. When this was related to the king, he said to the bishop when by chance they
were going in for dinner, ‘Master bishop, why did you want to give the royal horse, which
was appropriate for you to have, to a beggar? Do we not have many cheaper horses, or
other types which would be sufficient as a gift to the poor, even if you did not give them
that horse, which I chose specially for you to possess?’ Text is taken from Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, OMT
(Oxford, 1969), p. 258.
169
A. Hyland, The Horse in the Middle Ages (London, 1999), pp. 3-4; idem., Medieval
Warhorse, p. 66.
170
Arguments for such an early date are old-fashioned, but see, for example, A. S. Cook,
‘The Possible Begetter of the Old English Beowulf and Widsith’, Trans. of the
Connecticut Acad. of Arts and Sciences 25 (1922), 281–346; R. Girvan, Beowulf and the
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Seventh Century: Language and Content (London, 1935); C. C. Batchelor, ‘The Style of
the Beowulf: A Study of the Composition of the Poem’, Speculum 12 (1937), 330–42; H.
Munro Chadwick, ‘The Heroic Age, An Excerpt’, in Anthology of Beowulf Criticism, pp.
23–33. More recently, the poem has been dated on the basis of meter as having been
composed before 725 (if of Mercian origin) or before 825 (if of Northumbrian origin): see
R. D. Fulk, A History of Old English Meter (Philadelphia, PA, 1992), p. 390.
171
B. Raw, ‘Royal Power and Royal Symbols in Beowulf’, in The Age of Sutton Hoo: The
Seventh Century in North-Western Europe, ed. M. O. H. Carver (Woodbridge, 1992), pp.
167–74, at 174.
172
Examples of some of the varied approaches to this issue may be found in D. Whitelock,
The Audience of Beowulf (Oxford, 1951); R. I. Page, ‘The Audience of Beowulf and the
Vikings’, in The Dating of Beowulf, ed. Chase, pp. 113–22; Kiernan, Beowulf and the
Beowulf-Manuscript, pp. 13–63; D. Dumville, ‘Beowulf and the Celtic World: The Uses
of Evidence’, Traditio 37 (1981), 109–60; P. Wormald, ‘Bede, Beowulf and the
Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy’, in Bede and Anglo-Saxon England, ed. R. T.
Farrell, BAR 46 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 32–95.