The Horse in the Furrow

by George Ewart Evans

  ‘Scottish farmers went in for decoration of their horses more than Suffolk farmers did—although we had brasses to a certain extent.’

  ‘We’ve never heard of any of those beliefs (in brasses as amulets). We know nothing about such superstitions here.’

  From early history, ownership of the horse was the mark of an aristocratic class; and a horse’s decorations were a visible sign of the owner’s wealth and status. Any ritual significance of the decorations would be secondary to this. This appears to be confirmed by the earliest and most extensive hoard of horse-trappings discovered in Britain. Although there are ninety pieces in the hoard—some functional, such as buckles, terrets and slides; and others decorative—none of these decorative pieces has any resemblance to the ritual amulets described above. One decoration, however, a series of convex, circular discs, marked with concentric rings, is identical with the brass ear-pieces worn by present-day cart-horses; and this design might well have had a symbolic meaning, possibly connected with the sun.

  The hoard was discovered in north Wales at Parc-y-meirch (The Park of the Horses), Denbighshire sometime before 1868. It has been dated to the Late Bronze Age—the second phase: 750–400 B.C. The trappings were made of a leaded bronze and were all cast. The finest objects in the collection, now divided between the National Museum of Wales and the Hull Museum, are two sets of circular bronze discs attached to rings. There are six discs in each set. They hung suspended by small loops through which the rings were threaded; and while their main purpose was undoubtedly ornamental, their jingling also served to draw attention to the horse’s approach, exactly as do the bells still seen occasionally on the saddles and bridles of cart-horses. Their circular form and the loops or hangers in these discs suggest that they are the prototype of the present-day ‘face-brasses’ which have long ago lost their function of jingling and making a pleasant noise.4

  The designs of horse-brasses may be divided into two classes: pattern brasses of abstract or geometrical design, and figure subjects—the horse itself, for instance, either rampant, as often as an heraldic subject, or passant, perhaps linked with the cult of the horse that has left its traces in the horses cut into the chalk hillsides of Southern England. The manufacture of horse-brasses is highly commercialised today, and approaching two thousand different designs are known. On this scale the horse-brass is a product of the Industrial Revolution: it is stated5 that few brasses were made commercially before 1800 and they did not become popular until the accession of Queen Victoria when several new patterns were made to celebrate her Coronation. The old hand-made horse-brass is extremely rare today.

  Many of the present-day brasses are made in Birmingham, but one aspect of the industry shows that it has not altogether outgrown the ‘hand-made’ stage from which it evolved. A recent newspaper article6 gave an account of an interview with a Birmingham housewife who ‘finishes off’ horse-brasses that come to her as rough castings from a local foundry. She has been doing this work for forty-two years. Each brass is taken through seven different stages of polishing and filing before it is ready for packing—the whole process taking between ten and twenty minutes.

  Horses on Suffolk farms wore brasses, both pattern and figured on the head—a forehead or face-brass hanging between the eyes on a pad of leather—and on the martingale. The martingale worn by a heavy horse is a broad band of leather hanging from the bottom of the collar over the chest and fixed to the belly-band. The strap is ornamented with a number of brasses—three, four or five were the numbers met with in Suffolk: ‘You didn’t choose the brasses separately. The martingales were usually made up in the harness shop, the brasses already on ’em. You picked the set that took your fancy.’

  ‘On the necklace, a strap of about eighteen inches in length lying on the clean side of the neck—the mane is allus on the right side—there were a lot of heart-shaped brasses, enough to cover it.

  ‘The leading-rein had brass on it, too: it was all covered with brass studs. The leading-rein was looped round the seals when you were not using it and left to hang; sometimes there’d be hounces7—a red tassel—fixed to the end of the rein. Now and then we’d have a small apron o’ leather, a half-circle in shape with a fringe or a tassel on it. This was fixed by straps to the back of the collar and stood upright. On special occasions we had the swing-gates or swingers—the brasses fixed between the ears at the top of the dutfin, or on top of the saddle. They were mostly small face-pieces swinging in a circular frame, or a small bell with a plume.’

  These are often referred to as flyers or even terrets—but a terret is properly a rein-ring. Latten bells a kind of bell-flyer made from latten, an old type of brass, were once made in sets of four; and each set was called after the team horse to which it was fitted: the lead might have five bells, lash and body four, and the thiller three. Ear-pieces were decorated, enamel bosses or occasionally a round, cone-shaped brass like the pieces in the Parc-y-meirch hoard. If a horseman put the tassels on the leading-rein or the saddle, also the tasselled pad of leather on the collar, it drew the comment: ‘I see he’s got his hounces out today.’ But the large pad of leather, fastened on to the hames or collar, is more properly called the housing. In dry weather this apron of leather stood stiffly up; but in wet it lay back on the horse’s withers, thus keeping them dry. Its purpose, therefore, was not entirely decorative. The wool in the housing proper was variously coloured, chiefly red, yellow, and blue.

  ‘On special occasions we used to decorate the tail with a whit-leather thong—pipe-clayed to keep it spruce. You bound up the tail with the thong, “binding one and leaving one”; so you got an alternate brown and white pattern by binding one width and leaving the tail show through for the next. Or we sometimes bound up a tail with three yards of tail-binding, red braid about two inches wide, done tightly and tied at the bottom of the tail so no hair was showing. Then we bound white and blue braid in alternate strips on this red background. The mane was usually tied up with bast and decorated with ribbon.’

  Bung or docked tails were very popular in the early days of the Suffolk horse. John Julian, the early nineteenth century breeder, had a team of four horses, all with bung’d8 tails; but there may have been another reason for this tail-docking in addition to a desire to be in the fashion. E. P. Simkin, a Stowmarket chemist, has a small clothes brush made by a local man who went round the farms collecting horse-hair to make brushes. The brush has been in constant use for thirty years and shows no sign of deterioration, chiefly because the tufts of hair were wired in at the back of the brush, in the old handmade style and not glued as most brushes are today. Horse-hair was once in great demand for brushes, the padding of furniture and so on; and it was also extensively used for binding plaster on walls and ceilings. For instance, Playford churchwardens’ account book for May 31st 1821 has: ‘Lime and hair…. 5s. 0d.’ as one item in a list of expenses incurred for repair-work in the church. There appears to have been more than one way of collecting this hair from the farms. In the Museum of English Rural Life at Reading an old bill, dated 9th May, 1838, is preserved. It advertised a reward for anyone giving information which would lead to the arrest and conviction of ‘some evil disposed Person or Persons (who) did, in the Night of Tuesday, the 8th Instant, break open the Stable of Furzefield Farm, in the Parish of Shermanbury (Sussex) in the occupation of Mr Thomas Page and maliciously Cut Off and carry away THE HAIR from the TAILS OF 3 CART HORSES.’ Therefore, tail-docking may have been a matter of policy—of getting the cut in first—rather than a particular desire to conform to a fashion which people like Sir John Cullum had already roundly condemned.

  1 Judges, viii. 21: ‘ornaments that were on the camels’ necks’ (Revised Version: ‘crescents or ornaments like the moon’).

  2 H. S. Richards, ‘Horse Harness Ornaments,’ B.O.H., p. 768.

  3 Christina Hole, English Folklore, p. 82.

  4 T. Sheppard, ‘The Parc-y-meirch Hoard,’ Archaeologia Cambrensis, XCVI, Part 1, June 1941.

 
5 H. S. Richards, ‘Horse Harness Ornaments,’ B.O.H., p. 768.

  6 The Western Mail, 22nd November, 1957.

  7 A.F.C.H., p. 205.

  8 Probably called after the bung or stopper in a wooden barrel. The stump of the tail, denuded of hair, resembles this in shape.

  Part Four

  FOLKLORE CONNECTED WITH THE HORSE

  19

  Care of the Horse

  The traditional lore connected with the horse can be treated under two headings: first, the care of the horse and then his management. Although the distinction is to a great degree artificial, it is convenient here to deal separately with these two aspects of the traditional material.

  Some of the herbs used by horsemen on the farms have already been mentioned. Their use as remedies is undoubtedly very old, and it is likely that the gypsies had a great deal to do with disseminating the traditional knowledge of the use of herbs as horse-medicines. Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald has stated1 that the best horse-doctor he ever knew was a gypsy; and, in fact, in many parts of Britain—particularly Wales—the gypsy horse-doctor is consulted in preference to the ‘vet’, even today. Vesey-Fitzgerald has listed a number of the old gypsy herbal remedies for disease in horses, and some of the remedies used by the old horsemen on Suffolk farms were similar. In order to show how extensive the use of herbs was here, a list of those used on one Suffolk farm is given.

  The common agrimony was much in use as it kept the horses in condition. It grows on banks and hedges and has little yellow flowers on a long stem or spike. Vesey-Fitzgerald records that agrimony was one of the tried remedies of the gypsy horse-doctor, Stanley, who gave a strong infusion of this herb to cure the fever that sometimes accompanies cracked heels. Burdock was also a favourite herb for conditioning the farm-horses. This is the plant from which country boys take the burs to stick to one another’s garments: ‘I laughed when I saw a man had a bunch of burdock leaves hanging up on his shed to dry. The leaves are not the best part of the plant: it’s the roots you got to use. But it wouldn’t do to tell him: he’d say: “Dew yew think I don’t know my own business!” and he’d stick a swear into you as soon as look at you. Keep it to yourself. Keep it quiet; that’s how we used to go on.’

  The horsemen used ragwort for the same purpose. But one of the best remedies used on this farm was the leaves of the ‘saffron tree’:2 ‘There are two kinds of tree—male and female. In the male there is a kind of catkin that sticks up: in the female the catkin hangs down. The female is the one to use. Every time the guv’nor came to the farm—it was an ‘off-hand’ place—I used to watch the groom who brought him. As soon as the guv’nor had started on his round of the farm, the groom went to one of the saffron trees near the gate and took enough leaves for the week. I tried it on our horses and it were wunnerful stuff. But the trees got blown down in a gale; and I told myself I’d get a couple of those trees and grow them in my own garden. But I looked all over the county and down in Hertfordshire as well but I never did come by a tree like it.’

  Elecampane was another of the herbs in frequent use: ‘We used it to keep ’em on their feed. After the horses had worked very hard, they’d often have no desire to eat: they were too tired. This herb helped to give them an appetite. It has a long, broad velvety leaf; and it was the leaf we used.’ Elecampane is a very old remedy, and not only for horse-sickness. The doctor in the old mummers’ play, Saint George and the Dragon, used this herb as his cure-all. He comes forward, it will be remembered, when Saint George goes down before the Dragon’s uninhibited assault, and he offers to cure the champion of his wound. Father Christmas asks warily: ‘What is your fee?’ and in one version of the play the doctor replies:

  Fifteen pounds, it is my fee.

  The money to lay down;

  But since ’tis such a rogue as he,

  I’ll cure him for ten pound.

  I have a little bottle of Elicumpane;

  Here, Jack, take a little of my flip-flop;

  Pour it down thy tip-top;

  Rise up and fight again.

  George Fox, the Quaker, also favoured the herb when he was imprisoned in the draughty castle of Scarborough in 1665; he said: ‘One time when the weather was very cold, and I had taken great cold, I got a little elecampane beer.’3 His jailers, however, filched it, and he was deprived of its comfort. The herb must be a very strong one as, it will be noticed, little is the emphatic word in both cases.

  Feather-few or fever-few was another herb used on the same farm: ‘It’s a plant with leaves that turn yellow and it has a small white flower. We used it for curing colds and giving the horses an appetite.’ Culpeper lists the plant and recommends it because it ‘purgeth both cold and phlegm’. The horseman used rosemary for taking away all smells: the full significance of this property of the herb will be seen later. ‘If you’ve been hulking (disembowelling) a rabbit, just rub your hands in rosemary: it will take away all smells. Besides, it’s a real owd cat-charmer. Rub some rosemary on your trousers and all the cats will come brushing against you.’ Valerian is reported4 to be a herb with similar properties.

  Celandine was used to clear a horse of worms. ‘The plant was dried and fed in the horse’s bait. A horseman on one of the farms not very far from ours had some difficulty in getting celandine. So his son brought a plant from another village, and he planted some in his father’s garden. When the old man left the farm he gave the plant to me; but he said: “Don’t yew tell anybody about it. It wouldn’t dew for ma’ son to know I’d given it away.”’

  Horehound was a herb that was much used for ‘keeping horses on their feed’. The horseman added: ‘One of my mates used to drink horehound every day. He said it kept him in trim.’ Horehound was also given for colds in both horses and men. Rue—meadow-rue—was also a herb in constant use: ‘It stinks but it’s useful herb to have.’ Belladonna, or deadly nightshade, was used for curing a horse with a cough. ‘We mixed it up into a thick syrup—an electuary—then we brought the horse’s tongue forward, and placed the belladonna right at the back of it with a wooden spoon. When we released the tongue the horse swallowed the medicine.’

  Arthur Chaplin recalled how jealously the secrets of cures and conditioning herbs were guarded. His father, Frederick Chaplin (born 1862), was renowned for the beautiful coats his horses always had. They were referred to by his mates as ‘owd Fred’s mouse-coated ones’ because they were as sleek and as silky as a well-fed mouse. ‘They allus look tidy,’ they said. But one day when Arthur was a young boy, one of the mates was bold enough to ask: ‘But how do you get ’em like thet, Fred?’ The answer was prompt if rather cryptic: ‘Cribbage and time; jes’ cribbage and time.’ After the man had gone Frederick Chaplin said to his young son: ‘Thet will fox him. He’ll most likely think I mean the herb.’ Thyme was, in fact, used in the old horseman’s medicines as one of the constituents of the ‘drawing oils’ (see later, p. 264); but as Arthur Chaplin explained: ‘The answer wasn’t altogether bluff. The truth was hidden in it, like it often was with horse matters. It said in other words: “Crib (steal or acquire) all the food you can for your horses and give them plenty of time to eat it.” My father was jes’ having a knock at those chaps who stayed in bed till the last moment and didn’t give their horses enough time for a proper bait before turning out.’

  Even when they used roughly the same herbs or remedies the old horsemen’s methods of administering them differed. Many ground up the leaves of the plant after it had been dried, and mixed the powder with the horse’s chaff: roots also were grated into the bait. Others, however—the more knowing ones—prepared an infusion of the various herbs at home: ‘They boiled them up in the copper, just like brewing beer; and they took a bottle at a time to work and sprinkled it on the horses’ bait. If something went wrong, and the vet had to examine the stomach afterwards, he’d find nothing there. When the herbs were given this way, no one could put any blame on the horseman.’

  Most of the herbs favoured by the old horsemen had the sanction of
generations of successful use, and even in these days of antibiotics and other wonder-drugs they are not altogether to be despised. In fact, medical science may yet get help from an open-minded appraisal of some of these traditional remedies. To give an example: long before the discovery of penicillin it was the custom in parts of southern England to slice up a number of apples each autumn and then hang them in the attic: ‘A rich growth of penicillin-type mould developed all over the cut surfaces. During the winter months if anyone started a sore throat or signs of fever he would be given one of these apple-slices to chew.’5 The writer has come across two instances in Suffolk where a trivial and seemingly irrelevant condition laid down for the preparation of old remedies had a sound scientific basis.

  A man had a very troublesome ulcer on his leg and it did not respond to treatment. A gypsy, calling at the house by chance, prescribed the herb called house-leak or sengreen, but stated that it would be no use unless the dried herb was made up into an ointment using fresh dairy-cream as the base. On another occasion a gypsy cured a bad case of eczema in a child by prescribing a more-or-less orthodox ointment; but she enjoined that the ointment must be made up using home-made lard. In both instances no reason was given for the choice of these fats; but they were specified because with these there would be no danger of the cures being rendered ineffectual as often happened, through the use of commercial fats that had been adulterated, even in the smallest degree, by common salt or other preservatives.