Above: earlier in the year I was driving with a friend through some of the more obscure villages of the north of the county. We came down a gentle hill and saw these two white horses in a field on the edge of the lane and we had to stop and go up to them. Which has made me ask ever since: what is it about a white horse that arrests the attention.
They are beautiful, but other horses are also beautiful.
Is there some encoded message in our culture that tells us to pay attention when we see a white horse?
Above: ancient thatched pub in a market town in the centre of the county. The pub is called Ye OLDE White Horse, indicating it was old even by the reckoning of our forefathers. Much work needs to be done on the origin of pub names, but often they were the meeting places of retinues, factions, gangs, secret societies, fraternities, guilds etc.
Did some prehistoric clan of the white horse have its drinking hall on this spot, by this important river crossing, ten or eleven millennia ago?
Above: paintings of white horses in a display of amateur art. Why are white horses so favoured? Even the sun throws down a kindly ray of light upon these representations (obviously white horses become dazzling in full sunshine).
Above: the white horse used as a brand name. As a whisky drinker I like the blended versions. Apart from Isle of Jura I don't really care for the single malts.
Above: pictorial representations of white horses have been carved into the sides of chalk hills throughout the southern half of England. Their ritual maintenance is associated with a significant body of folklore. Again one has to ask: what is going on here?
The Uffington white horse: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-chl/w-countryside_environment/w-archaeology/w-archaeology-places_to_visit/w-archaeology-uffington_white_horse.htm
1960s children's series (black and white) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR6z8GUywyc
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_(whisky)
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