New Light on the White Horse

Abstract

The study of the White Horse of Uffington in Berkshire has led to the conclusion, based on field evidence, that the present form of the Horse is vestigial, that in common with all other hill-figures it is unstable, and that no deduction as to its age or origin can properly be made from its present appearance. The demonstration leading to this conclusion has been set out in a paper published by the Newbury and District Field Club (Transactions, Vol. XI, No. 3) and it is not proposed to repeat it here in full. The conclusion has been widely accepted; it is a matter of simple field observation supported by the documentary evidence. The purpose of this paper is to set out more fully the folklore of the Horse, and to follow up some of the implications of the customs and traditions associated with it. These are earlier and more important than the antiquarian controversy, discussed in the former paper, as to whether the Horse is, or is not, related to the horses on the ancient British coinage. The folklore of the Horse suggests a Saxon rather than a Celtic origin, but this conclusion has not met with the same acceptance as that of the natural decay of the design of the Horse. This is not surprising for it is easier to demolish a theory than to gain acceptance for another, and the idea of the Saxon origin of the figure is less susceptible of demonstration than the fact of its physical degeneration. Of the half-hundred or so colossal images cut out of the turf on the hills of the British Isles not more than half-a-dozen can be dated before 1700. This handful all lie to the south of a line drawn from the Wash to the Severn Estuary, and the lost hill-figures of comparable age of which there is any record, all lay in the same region (Fig. i). This distribution is not geological, nor does it