A reconstruction of the horse.
This probably ancient hill figure has
been long destroyed, but it may once have had significance equal to the White Horse of Uffington. Today it survives only in local place names and
business names.
The horse was cut into the steep escarpment
of Edgehill in Warwickshire, a ridgeline of high ground which formed part of
the long-distance ancient routeway which linked places such as the Rollright Stones, Traitor’s Ford and the Burton Dassett Hills. The area has an
ancient spiritual heritage and is linked to ghostly phenomena.
The ancient routeway along Edgehill
The horse was formed of trenches cut
into the clay subsoil and filled with a bright red, iron oxide-rich silt which
is characteristic of the area and gave the figure its name. The horse, like the
hill figure at Uffington, was intended to command the vast plain below the escarpment,
which stretches to the west for several miles. From any point in the vale, the
escarpment is visible on the horizon and the now vanished hill figure would
have drawn the eye. It was a declaration to anyone who passed by.
The view over the Vale of the Red
Horse
Unlike other monuments, hill figures
are dependent on human agency for their survival. A few years of neglect and
they vanish forever. It is also human agency which determines whether they
retain their original outline or whether they are altered or improved according
to the whim of the scourers. Or maybe this was the intention? So many ancient
monuments, Stonehenge being a prime example, are now known to have been constantly
modified and rearranged. Perhaps hill figures too were about the process of
creation and recreation, and each successive generation added their own stamp
to it?
A 19th century recording
of the horse
The first record of the horse’s
presence dates to 1612, and local records from the 1640s state it was scoured
every year. It seems it was much redefined over the centuries. The final
version, ploughed up and destroyed in 1800, was a rather inferior design with a
tail resembling a lion’s. A 20th century investigation found
evidence of this horse on the hillside, a little way above two other hill
figures which it probably replaced.
The older figure was a galloping
horse, 91 metres in length, with a smaller figure, probably a foal, in front of
it. These were long grassed over by the 19th century. The date of
its construction is unknown, but it’s been suggested that, like the Uffington
Horse, it dates to the Bronze Age. The horse became a symbol of power in the
warrior societies of this time, and it features strongly in local legends such
as Lady Godiva and the lady of Banbury Cross, perhaps part-forgotten memories
of religious rites involving a woman (or Goddess) on horseback. The hill figure
may have represented this deity, and proclaimed its might over the vast area it
overlooked.
Another interesting point is the name
of the nearby village. Tysoe derives from Tiw’s hoe; the hillside of Tiw.
Tiw, or Tyr, was the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian God of warriors who gives his
name to Tuesday. Was this hillside dedicated to Tiw by Anglo-Saxon settlers who
found an already ancient and sacred figure on this hillside? It seems likely.
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