White horses in mythology
From earliest times, white horses have been mythologised as possessing exceptional properties, transcending the normal world by having wings (e.g. 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 (Uchaishravas) or eight feet (Sleipnir), sometimes in groups or singly.
As a rare or distinguished symbol, a white horse typically bears the hero- or god-figure in ceremonial roles or in triumph over negative forces.
Herodotus reported that white horses were held as sacred animals in the Achaemenid court of Xerxes the Great (ruled 486–465 BC),[2] while in other traditions the reverse happens when it was sacrificed to the gods.
In Welsh mythology, Rhiannon, a mythic figure in the Mabinogion collection of legends, rides a "pale-white" horse.
In Scottish and Irish folklore, the kelpie or each uisge, a deadly supernatural water demon in the shape of a horse, is sometimes described as white, though other stories say it is black.
Poseidon was also the creator of horses, creating them out of the breaking waves when challenged to make a beautiful land animal.
[9] In Slavic mythology, the war and fertility deity Svantovit owned an oracular white horse; the historian Saxo Grammaticus, in descriptions similar to those of Tacitus centuries before, says the priests divined the future by leading the white stallion between a series of fences and watching which leg, right or left, stepped first in each row.
[citation needed] Actual historical background of the story is dubious because Svatopluk I was already dead when the first Hungarian tribes arrived.
On the other hand, even Herodotus mentions in his Histories an Eastern custom, where sending a white horse as payment in exchange for land means casus belli.
[citation needed] 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).
[14] In the Puranas, one of the precious objects that emerged during the legend of the churning of the ocean by the devas and the asuras was Uchchaihshravas, a snow-white horse with seven heads.
[28] In Ossetia, the deity Uastyrdzhi, who embodied both the warrior and sun motifs often associated with white horses, became identified with the figure of St. George after the region adopted Christianity.
[30] Islamic culture tells of a white creature named Al-Buraq who brought Muhammad to Jerusalem during the Night Journey.
The city of Pangantucan has as its symbol a white stallion who saved an ancient tribe from massacre by uprooting a bamboo and thus warning them of the enemy's approach.
Gandalf, a protagonist and wizard in The Lord of the Rings rides on his white mount Shadowfax, who is described as being silver in color.
[37] The white horse is a recurring motif in Ibsen's play Rosmersholm, making use of the common Norse folklore that its appearance was a portent of death.
