The folk lore of the horse / by Edward Lovett.

  • Lovett, Edward.
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The folk lore of the horse / by Edward Lovett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/22 page 5
    —In point of fact, it was thought that horses are exceedingly liahle! to be “ overlooiked”; and thisi belief can not only be tiaced wherever the horse was used by man, but it apparently existed even in the earliesti times. Another rather remarkable fact is that it was thought that it was the first glance only which did the mischief, hence the protective amulets were so made and displayed as toi even attract the much dreaded in¬ fluence and thus save the horse. They were bright, or bril¬ liant in colour. Many of them, swayed and swung with the moveineiits of the, horse, and we all know how the eye is attracted by anything that moves. In short, the amulet acted for the horse precisely as a lightning conductor acts for a house. It is exceedingly difficult to trace back theisei brass amulets in an unbroken line to their first appearance as horse' charms, but we find them still surviving in odd, and out-of-the>-way iDlaces, whereas in some countries they seem toi have quite disa.ppeared. Of the three chief types, from which I think we may reasonably conclude all sub^-types have! been evolved, the heart is the one. really most in evidence, numerically speaking. It is quite a common sight to-day to! see a coal-cart horse wearing as many as twenty heart charmsi in a long line on its check rein, to siay nothing of two' or three large ones on its martingale. I think we may not unreasonably con¬ nect this with the importance of the heart as the vital organ, indeed, of Life itself and its connection again with Sacrifice. We know that in the ancient Mexican, sacrifices in Tenochr titlan, thei heart was torn out of thei living human victim and offered to the god Huitzilopochtli. Later we find, where details are given as to' horse sacrifice, that the horse was thrown upon its back by ropes tied toi its legs, and when held in that position, its hearti was torn out through a gash made by the operator in thei living animal; that the flesh was after^ wards eaten, and what was left was destroyed by fire. The subject of the heart' as an amulet isi a, very large one, but its position as such is; I think, obvious. Needless to say that many forms; and variations of it. occur not only alone, but grafted on to the disc type, and I have even found that in some localities the heart brass is the favourite pattern, a saddler telling me once; that he sold five of them to
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