In early times it was customary to use horses’ heads as talismans, by
means of which also the ancient heathen nations practiced various
magical arts. Grimm says in his “Teutonic Mythology” that the
Scandinavians had a custom of fastening a horse’s head to a pole, with
the mouth propped open with a stick. The gaping jaws were then turned
in the direction whence an enemy was likely to come, in order to cast
over him an evil spell. This contrivance was known as a spite-stake,
or nithing-post. In Mallet’s “Northern Antiquities” (p. 156, 1890), it
is related that Eigil, a famous Icelandic bard, on being banished from
Norway in the ninth century, fixed a stake in the ground and fastened
thereon a horse’s head, saying meanwhile: “I here set up a nithing-stake,
and turn this my banishment against King Eirek and Queen Gunhilda.” Then,
pointing the horse’s head toward the interior of Norway, he uttered a
solemn imprecation against the protecting deities of the land, invoking
evil upon them, and expressing a wish that they might be compelled to
wander about and never find rest until they had driven forth the hated
king and queen. In these cases the horse’s head was magically employed as
an instrument for working evil upon an enemy, but later the same symbol
was widely used among northern peoples as a talisman _against_ evil.
Not alone in remote antiquity, but throughout the Middle Ages, the old
pagan device of the spite-stake continued to be employed by the Teutonic
peoples; and even after the Reformation, as late as the year 1584, a
mare’s skull placed upon a pole was a favorite means for driving away
rats and other vermin in Germany. The principle involved appears to have
been always the same, namely, the power of averting evil supposed to be a
magical attribute of horses’ heads; and this power was not only effective
against human enemies, but likewise against the spirits of evil.[160]
When the Roman general Cæcina Severus reached the scene of Varus’s defeat
by the German tribes under their chieftain Arminius, in the year 9 A. D.,
near the river Weser, he saw numbers of horses’ heads fastened to the
trunks of trees. These were the heads of Roman horses which the Germans
had sacrificed to their gods.[161]
In the fifteenth century a savage tribe known as the Wends had a practice
of placing a horse’s head in the crib or manger to counteract the
influence of evil spirits, and to prevent their horses from being ridden
by the Night Hag. And in many countries analogous notions, veritable
relics of paganism, exist in full force to-day. Thus in Mecklenburg and
Holstein it is a common usage to place the carved wooden representations
of the heads of horses on the gables of houses as safeguards, and when
fixed upon poles in the vicinity of stables they are thought to ward off
epizoötics. In Mecklenburg, also, horses’ heads, when placed beneath the
pillows of the sick, are believed to act as febrifuges, and in Holland
they are hung up over pigsties. The fore-parts of horses are to be seen
on the gables of old houses in the Rhætian Alps, “carved out of the ends
of the intersecting principals.”[162]
The use of horses’ heads as talismans is thought to have some connection
with the ancient pagan sacrificial offerings of horses. Adherence to the
latter custom was formerly regarded as a pledge of loyalty to heathenism,
and conversely its renunciation was a sign of adopting the new religion.
In the tenth century the Norwegian king Hakon Athelstan, known as “Hakon
the Good,” endeavored persistently to extirpate heathen idolatry in his
kingdom, but without much success, owing to the vigorous opposition of
his people. At one of their great Yule-tide festivals the king was urged
to eat some horse’s flesh as a proof of devotion to the old faith, and on
his refusal to do this they wished to kill him.
On another occasion King Hakon so far yielded to the importunities of
his people as to inhale the steam from a kettle of horse-broth. He also
drank some Yule-beer, holding the cup in his left hand, while with his
right he made the sign of the cross, which the pagan mind conceived to
be the symbol of Thor’s hammer. Finally he was even induced to eat a
couple of mouthfuls of horse-flesh, an act which his people accepted as a
satisfactory guarantee of his orthodoxy.[163]
Among the newly converted Northern nations the use of horse-flesh as
food fell into disrepute, and the practice was looked upon as a secret
sacrifice to the old idols, while those indulging in it were punished as
obdurate pagans.[164]
The employment of horses’ heads as talismans, a custom doubtless
originating in heathendom, has been thought not only to suggest the
sacrificial offering of a horse, but also to symbolize the religious
dedication of a building placed under the protective influence of such
a symbol. For among the ancient Teutons the horse was held to be the
most holy of animals, and auguries were derived from the neighings of
white horses in their sacred groves. There exists, moreover, among
German peasants a widespread belief that the placing of carved wooden
representations of horses’ heads upon house-gables is an act of homage to
the Deity, whose blessing and benediction are thereby invoked upon the
dwellings thus adorned, and upon the inmates as well. When, however, the
heads are directed _outwards_, in order to ward off evil, the principle
involved is evidently akin to that of the pagan spite-stake, of which
mention has been made.
Professor Christian Petersen, of Hamburg, who investigated this subject
some years ago, expressed the belief that among the pagans every dwelling
was protected by three talismanic emblems, namely: (1) on the gable a
_horse’s head_, or the representation of some other animal or bird; (2)
by the side of the entrance door a _broom_, as a preservative against
lightning; and (3) on the threshold a _horse-shoe_.
The German botanist, Karl Friedrich von Ledebour, who visited the Altai
Mountains early in the present century, wrote that among the Kalmuks,
a nomadic people inhabiting that region, he observed numerous horses’
heads and hides, relics of sacrifices, placed upon scaffolds; and the
direction of the horses’ heads, pointing east or west, indicated whether
the sacrificial offering was made to a good or evil deity.[165]
Formerly in some parts of Germany, especially in the north, it was
customary to place a horse’s head above the stable door; sometimes also
horses were killed and their bodies buried beneath the corner-stone of a
building, in order to bring good luck. In the same region the association
of horses and horse-shoes with lucky influences is everywhere apparent:
a horse-shoe when found is either carried about as an amulet, or placed
on the chamber wall or threshold; and a young girl who finds a certain
number of horse-shoes in a year, or who sees a hundred white horses
within the same period, will be married before the year is out.[166]
In Moldavia the head of a horse or of an ass is much esteemed on account
of its reputed magical properties, and is believed to be a powerful
agent not only for the production of witchcraft, but conversely as a
powerful antagonist of evil.[167] Inclosures where animals are kept are
very commonly protected by one of these talismans placed upon a forked
stake; and the same device is popular as a safeguard against wolves
and robbers.[168] In Roumania the skull of a horse is placed over a
court-yard gate as a preservative against ghosts, and in Tuscany it is
also used as a charm.[169]
The Christmas festivities at Ramsgate, in Kent, formerly included a
peculiar feature called “going a-hodening.” A horse’s head fixed on a
pole was carried through the town by a party of young people, grotesquely
attired and ringing hand-bells. By pulling a string attached to the lower
jaw, the horse’s mouth was made to open and shut with a snapping sound.
In this case the horse’s head was typical of the good Demon, threatening
and overcoming the powers of darkness.[170]
It appears that a modern counterpart of the ancient heathen practice
of hanging equine heads upon trees, as tributes to Wodan, still exists
in Sussex, where the bodies of horses are suspended by the legs from
horizontal tree-branches, as a means of bringing luck to the cattle.
And the evident analogy between the two customs of widely separated
epochs, the sacrificial offering of horses upon trees in order to avert
evil or to invoke protection, has not escaped the attention of modern
writers.[171]
The Ostiaks of southern Siberia were wont to suspend horses’ heads from
the branches of trees, and to protect bees from witchcraft they also
placed them near the hives.[172]
In Bulgaria and among the Osseten, an Asiatic tribe, the same talismans
are affixed to the palings inclosing farmyards. The ancient Teuton
placed a horse’s head on the weather-vane of his barn, while he hung up
a horse-shoe in some consecrated place, as a deprecatory offering to the
god of thunder and storms;[173] and the Tartars of the Chinese province
of Koukou-Nor seek to protect their bees from the “evil eye” by hanging
up near the hives either a skull, a foot, or in fact any bone of a horse.
In Mecklenburg one remedy for the delirium of fever consists in placing a
horse’s skull under the bed; and in some parts of Prussia certain spinal
affections of children are treated by bathing the patient in rain-water
in which a horse’s head has been dipped thrice daily for three successive
Thursdays.[174] In a curious old work by M. Fugger (1854), the writer
says that a mare’s skull, fixed on a pole and placed in a garden, has a
wonderful effect in promoting the growth of plants and vegetables, and,
moreover, insures freedom from rats and caterpillars.[175]
The Magyar shepherds place horses’ and asses’ skulls as talismans about
their sheepfolds to keep wolves away from their flocks, and also to
prevent herbaceous animals other than their sheep from eating the grass
of their pasture lands. Also when, as occasionally happens, some hill
or upland region gains an unsavory reputation among the peasants as an
alleged meeting-place of witches, horses’ skulls are placed there in
order to prevent such unseemly orgies, for, according to the popular
report, where witches meet grass will not grow. Whoever has the courage
to visit such a place on the midnight of Good Friday with a so-called
_Luciastuhl_, a peculiar chair or stool made during Christmas week, may
see the witches at their revels, and may easily disperse them by throwing
a horse’s skull into their midst.[176]
The gypsies inhabiting lands bordering on the eastern Danube are wont
to fasten the skulls of horses and cattle upon the fence-palings which
surround their farmyards, to prevent witches and evil spirits from
entering the inclosures. So, too, the Transylvanian gypsies bury horses’
skulls beneath the floor of the earth caverns which they occupy in
winter; and the tribes of southern Hungary place similar talismans upon
the graves of their kindred, that no witch may tread upon the sanctified
ground.[177]
The wizards and conjurers of the Shamans pretend to be experts in
sorcery, and to possess a secret knowledge which enables them to control
the actions of evil spirits. They wear a long elk-skin robe adorned with
many fetich objects, such as bells and pieces of iron; and to assist them
in their magic rites they carry staves, whose tops are carved into the
shape of horses’ heads, and by means of these staves they are enabled to
leap high into the air.[178]