Horses of Antiquity, Their Ancient and Sacred History

In the myths of the horse we see the ancient and sacred history of humanity. Throughout this history is etched the passage of man as warrior, priest, healer, builder of dreams, wrecker of worlds. Some mystics say that we can see all of this in the eye of the horse — in the prism of the pupil is written the beginning, and perhaps, the end of it all.

In the very image or shadow of the horse is the cosmos of collective human memory; our folly, fantasy, failure and ingenuity.

It is all written in the oral literature of the equine. You might ask, “Were not dogs and cats there on the human scene earlier having even more impact upon our myths?” The roughly 5,000 year cycle of stories that revolves around all three animal archetypes raises and answers this question.

Canine mythology explains that God, seeing Man so feeble, gave him Dog, so he wouldn’t be lonely.

Feline mythology suggests that we could not see God — but we could see, and worship, Cat wherein God dwelt.

Equine mythology takes a different position. It states and impossible but not unimaginable beauty: Man, the ancient parables say, was once Horse. And that is only the beginning of the story.

Let’s imagine then that the cat and the dog got us safely down the path of life. But the horse got us into the gloried and storied magic wood of the world. And in riding on horseback we discovered that the thing we were searching for was right there, under us — Horse!

The mythology of the horse is also a wild ride on the mare of night. Nightmare. Through which, by turns, by leaps and gallops, we find that the mount is seldom ennobled by the rider; it is almost always the other way around, whether it is Don Quixote or Jeanne d’Arc, the human in us rises to a greater sense of self when on horseback.