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Read Ebook: The Shetland Pony by Douglas A I Anne Isabel Douglas Charles Ewart J C James Cossar Contributor
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Ebook has 262 lines and 32755 words, and 6 pages
CHAP. PAGE
THE FETLAR PONY 46
THE MAKING OF THE SHETLAND PONY 113
NOTES 173
THE HORSE ON THE BRESSAY STONE " 12
BY THE VOE " 26
GOING SOUTH " 30
COMING FROM MARKET " 38
CARRYING PEAT " 44
JACK " 50
ODIN " 54
MULTUM IN PARVO " 58
THOR " 60
PRINCE OF THULE " 64
SAPPHIRE " 68
BOADICEA " 72
STELLA " 76
FOALS IN SUMMER " 90
A TEAM OF MARES " 100
ON DUTY " 108
Fig. 1. A 41-inch Java Pony.
Fig. 2. A Norwegian Udganger Pony.
Fig. 3. A 42-inch Pony of the Udganger type from Iceland.
Fig. 4. Skeleton of Highland Chieftain, a 33-inch Shetland Pony.
Fig. 5. Skeleton of Persimmon, a 66-inch Thoroughbred.
Fig. 6. Skull of Eric, a 36?5-inch Shetland Pony.
Fig. 7. Skull of a new-born foal, Celtic type.
Fig. 8. Skull of a wild Prjevalsky horse, from Mongolia.
Fig. 17. Shetland, 33 inches.
Fig. 23. Premolar and molars of a small mediaeval? horse from Aberdour, Aberdeenshire.
Fig. 24. Premolar and molars of a small horse from the Roman Fort, Newstead.
The Shetland Pony.
The Early History.
A breed of small horses appears to have been the first Scottish domestic animal to attract that attention which British livestock now commands so generally. Dion Cassius, as translated by Holinshed, says of the "Calidons," in the second century of our era, that "they fight in wagons, and have little light and swift horses, which are also very swiftie, and stand at their feet with like stedfastness;" and "St Austin" is said by Hamilton Smith to describe how "Mannii or poneys brought from Britain were chiefly in use among strolling performers, to exhibit in feats of their craft." This race of small horses survives in the Shetland pony.
We also know from rock-drawings, which are so ancient that their origin is lost in antiquity, that horses or ponies were found in Norway at a time lying beyond the beginning of history; and coming nearer to our time, we have clear and definite records showing that in the sixteenth century breeds of small ponies were regarded as belonging characteristically to Norway and Sweden. Olaus Magnus records that: "There are many Herds of small Horses but they are very strong; for by their strength and agility they exceed many greater bodied Horses; and Forraign and Domestic Chapmen buy them for their pleasure, and transport them into remote lands, to be sold as Wonders of Nature. For they are most ingenious, that they can be taught by them to dance and jump at the sound of the Drum or Trumpet; and it is their Exercise by such shews to get gain. Moreover, they are taught to leap through hoops of Iron or Lead, not very large, as Dogs do, and they will turn themselves about with wonderful swiftness.
"Also being called by their proper names, they do it, more or less, as they are commanded.
"These horses feed, when there is necessity, with nothing but broiled Fish and Fir-tree wood; and they will drink ale and Wine till they be drunk."
"Also the Finland horses are of good qualities."
The Scandinavian horses were not all alike in merit, for Gervase Markham says:
"Next, then, I place the Sweathland horse who is a horse of little stature, lesser good shape, but least vertue; they are for the most part pied, with white legges and wall eyes; they want strength for the warres, and courage for journeying; so that I conclude they are better to look upon than imploy."
These records, combined with the strong family resemblance between Norwegian ponies and certain types of Shetland pony, lead us to conjecture that there is either some extent of common ancestry in those two breeds or some cross, near or remote, of one with the other. It is probable that the Scandinavian invaders, whose literature and mythology as well as their place-names display a deep interest in horses, may have brought horses with them to Orkney and Shetland. With this common element, however, we also find a real difference.
While some Shetland ponies of the present-day closely resemble the Norwegian, there are others which belong to a wholly different type--ponies whose characteristics can only be described by the general term of "Oriental," long-shouldered, fine-boned, small in head, and with an unmistakable Arab outlook. Such a type as this does not occur in the Scandinavian breeds; and its existence proves clearly the presence in the Shetland pony of some ancestral element not found in the Scandinavian horse. This is all the more clearly shown by the fact that the Shetland ponies of this Oriental type do not form pure continuous or separate strains within the breed, but crop out here and there, sometimes the parents, and sometimes the progeny, of ponies apparently purely Scandinavian. They are evidently reversions to an ancestral type which has deeply influenced the breed as a whole and remains an ineradicable element in it. No facts are yet available to show whether these Shetland ponies of Oriental character could be so interbred as to produce a race breeding true to this type. The attempt has never been made; since the general tendency of recent breeders has been rather to neglect and eliminate this kind of pony.
The existence of this strain in the Shetland pony is undeniable, however we may account for it; but, in attempting to explain it, we are almost entirely in the realm of conjecture. Two possible sources of an actual Oriental cross offer themselves for consideration.
In the year 1150 Jarl R?gnvald of Orkney and Shetland, while visiting Norway, became imbued with the idea of leading a Crusade to the Holy Land; and two years later he set out from Orkney for Jerusalem, arrived there after many adventures, returned by way of Constantinople to Apulia, and travelled thence on horseback to Denmark.
The Orkneyinga Saga records the journey: "From there they sailed west to P?ll . Earl R?gnvald, Erling, Bishop William, and most others of their noblest men left their ships there, procured horses and rode to R?maborg , and then from R?m until they came to Denmark. From there they went to Norway where the people were glad to see them. This journey became very famous, and all those who had made it were considered greater men than before."
It remains a matter of wholly uninformed conjecture whether these war-worn travellers were so bound in affection and admiration to the equine companions of their journeys and adventures that, instead of leaving them in Denmark, they brought them home to Orkney and Shetland, just as in our day British soldiers brought back to our shores the Basuto ponies that had won their hearts on the African veldt. It is a question to which there is no answer.
We come scarcely nearer to anything that can be accounted as proof when we bring the Shetland pony within the orbit of the vivid and entrancing drama of the Spanish Armada.
Legend has always borne that the Armada, steering its stricken course round the North of Scotland and through the Irish Sea, left horses scattered along the coasts in Shetland, Lewis, Mull, Galloway, and on the Irish shores. The records taken at close quarters come tantalisingly near to evidence; but they never quite reach that level, so far as Shetland is concerned.
Whether they landed on that coast or not we may guess almost as we please. But if they did attain it, what kind of horses were they? The Spanish war-horse of that time, as we find it in the pictures of Velasquez, is much more Belgian than Arab, and by no means a likely source of Oriental type or of any good pony strain. On the other hand, there is considerable weight of legendary evidence in support of the view that horses carried by the Armada made an improvement in British breeds. "The fame of Newmarket," says Sheardown, "begins soon after the destruction of the Spanish Armada. Some horses which had escaped from the wrecked vessels are said to have been exhibited at that place and to have astonished those who beheld their extraordinary swiftness."
This record suggests that Spanish horses were the source of a distinct improvement in the races with which they were crossed, and especially in the matter of speed; and it is hardly possible to think that this should have been the case unless they were themselves of Eastern breeding.
Apart from these possible sources of an actual Oriental cross in the Shetland pony, there remains the possibility that the original pony of Celtic Shetland was itself similar in type and origin to the Oriental horse, and was, in fact, derived from the same stock which, in other conditions, has given rise to the Arab and the thoroughbred. The investigations of Professor Cossar Ewart and Mr Ridgeway point to the strong probability of a triple origin of the horse as it is known to history; and the fact that the Shetland pony, as we have it to-day, is sometimes of a purely Scandinavian type, sometimes of an Oriental type, may perhaps be explained by regarding it as a composite of two distinct races, one having a common origin with the Oriental horse, and the other being identical with the Scandinavian pony. Force is lent to this explanation by the fact that the pony depicted on the pre-Scandinavian Bressay Stone is wholly different in type and character from those represented in Scandinavian rock-drawings, and much more resembles the Oriental horse, with a high carriage and fine type of head, and a short back.
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