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It is hard to measure the
importance of the horse in Celtic Society.
Contrary to popular New Age
opinion, there is no evidence that goddess worship was the
primary tenet of ancient Celtic religion. The central notion
was of sacred kingship - as it was in most barbarian cultures
of Europe at the time (Etruscan, Thracian, Germanic etc) This
concept was embodied in the horse.
This connection between the
horse and kingship is very ancient. The Vedic horse sacrifice or
Ashvamedha was a fertility and kingship ritual involving the sacrifice of a sacred
white stallion. Similar rituals probably took place among Roman, Celtic and Norse peoples, but the descriptions are not so complete.
From earliest times white horses are
mythologized with exceptional properties, transcending the normal world by having wings (Pegasus from Greek mythology) or having horns (the unicorn). As part of its legendary dimension, the white horse in myth may be depicted with seven heads,
as the Hindu Uchaishravas, or eight feet, as in the
Viking Sleipnir. There are also white horses who are divinatory, who prophesy or warn of danger.
White horses have a special significance in the mythologies of cultures around the world. They are often associated with the sun chariot, with warrior-heroes (and later saints), with fertility (in both mare and stallion manifestations) or with an end-of-time saviour, but other interpretations exist as well.
The Gaulish horse-goddess Epona was the
protectress of the cavalry, chariot, transport and later even of the Roman-Gaulish legionaries. She is represented either sitting on a
side saddle, holding a magical small bird or fruit, symbol of fertility, in her hand, or standing between two horses.
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This piece
is strung with a silver chain, but can also be strung with semi
precious stones such as onyx
In Zoroastrianism, one of
the three representations of Tishtrya, the hypostasis of the star Sirius, is that of a white stallion (the other two are as a young man, and as a bull). The divinity takes this form
in a cosmological battle for control of rain. In some tales which
appear in the Avesta's hymns dedicated to Tishtrya, the divinity is opposed by
Apaosha, the demon of drought, which appears as a black
stallion.
In Slavic mythology, the war and fertility deity Svantovit owned an oracular white horse; the historian
Saxo
Grammaticus says the priests divined the future by leading the white stallion between series of fences and watching which leg, right or left, stepped first in each row.
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