LONG ago, when northern Europe was refrigerated in the Ice Age, a primitive human took a piece of mammoth ivory and commenced carving. The so-called ‘Vogelherd horse’, named for the German cave in which it was discovered, is an exquisite artifact. The 2in figurine captures perfectly, in the arch of the neck, the muscular power of the stallion; the slightly cocked head gives the animal the requisite air of contemplation. Our fascination—and our connection—with horses are old and unbridled; the Vogelherd horse has sculpted 40,000 years ago when we hunted equines for the camp barbecue. Since those misty Paleolithic days, we have ridden horses (archaeologists suggest Equus was domesticated in Kazakhstan, 5,500 years ago), milked them, loaded them as pack animals, used them for haulage, as war machines, for sport, and for companionship.
Oddly, Man’s second-best friend has rarely been considered worthy of ethological investigation, unlike, say, chimps and dolphins. In the past decade, science has begun to make good the omission—with results surprising even to those of us who never think of a horse as ‘it’, only ‘he’ or ‘she’, cannot understand why ‘horse’ is not bottled as the finest eau de cologne, believe we will meet our past horses in Heaven (if there are no horses, it’s not Heaven, QED) and have experienced steeds as diverse as laid-back Neddy at riding school and prima donna Kleo coming home late along the lane from a hack. A literal nightmare.
Denne historien er fra September 01, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra September 01, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
