In Odin’s Child (chapter one) Odd
Tangle-Hair and his brother bring their black stallion to a horse fight—a
popular entertainment among Viking-age Icelanders.
Ahead
of us a crowd was gathered for the horse fights. We worked our way to the front
until the clearing lay before us, a haze of dust hanging over the trampled
grass. At the edge of it the mares were tethered, while in the center two
farmers, stripped to the waist and backed by a knot of shouting friends, shoved
and goaded their snorting stallions into battle. It was a good match and we
watched, shouting with the rest, until the loser, foam-flecked and streaked
with blood, charged into the crowd, scattering spectators to right and left.
Winning horse and master both threw back their heads and cried victory.
In
the days before the White Christ came to Iceland, the winning horse would have
been sacrificed to Frey, whose horse's prick fertilizes the fields, and the
meat cut up and sold to the folk to eat. Christian priests had soon put a stop
to that, but they were too shrewd to make us give up our sport entirely.
But if, reading this, you visualized
a pair of huge animals such as Medieval knights rode to battle on, you would be
quite wrong. The Icelandic horse is a short-legged, sturdy animal that stands
only about 13 hands—that is, fifty-two inches—high. Technically, it’s a pony,
although no Icelander would dream of calling it that.
Icelanders love their horses
and go to extraordinary lengths to protect them. No other breed of horse can be
imported into the country and, if an Icelandic horse is exported, it can never
come back, for fear of bringing disease with it. The Icelandic language, it is
said, has over a hundred words for the varieties of color and pattern of their
coats. The horse plays a part in Norse mythology. Odin rode an eight-legged
horse named Sleipnir and the hero Sigurd rode one named Grani, after whom Odd
names his horse.
When I visited
Iceland, I convinced myself that if a writer is setting his story in a period
where people traveled on horseback, then you have to do that in order to get a realistic feel for how long it takes, and
how hard it is, to get anywhere. Riding in a car just gives you no sense of
that at all. I hadn’t been on horse since I was probably twelve years old but I
was sure it would all come back to me. There are a number of stables in the
Reykjavik area that organize horseback treks; I signed up at Ishestar for the all-day trek—a morning and afternoon session,
punctuated by a delicious lunch (price included) of all the roast lamb you
could eat. By the time I was through with lunch I would have happily called it
a day. But no, I was committed, so I mounted up again.
Riding one of
these horses is a bit different from what I remembered from my boyhood. For one
thing, you don’t neck-rein them, as I was taught to do. Also, an Icelandic
horse uniquely has two extra gaits besides the usual three (sort of like having
two extra gears on a car), although I’m not sure I really found them. And we
did it all: we saddled and unsaddled the horses twice, rode uphill and down,
crossed streams, galloped along winding tracks through the spectacular scenery
of south-western Iceland. Did I fall off? No. Did I almost fall off? Yes, two
or three times. Could I walk when it was over? Barely.
But did I
experience the contours and texture of the land as one of those hard-bitten
warriors of a thousand years ago would have? Absolutely. And it was worth it.
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