Welsh Journals

REVIEWS THE HORSE IN CELTIC CULTURE. MEDIEVAL WELSH PERSPECTIVES. Edited by Sioned Davies and Nerys Ann Jones. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1997. Pp.xvi,190; 13 illustrations. £ 14.95. This attractive volume, consisting of nine chapters by as many scholars and preceded by a general introduction by the editors, draws together material presented at two conferences which were held at University of Wales, Cardiff (1993), and the University of Edinburgh (1994). It is not made clear which papers belonged to which meeting, nor how the subject was divided between the two conferences. It may have been a deliberate editorial decision to blur the distinction. However, the volume's title, with its wider 'Celtic' reference qualified by 'Medieval Welsh', points to the bijugate origin of the work. Three of the chapters are concerned with the wider Celtic world, whereas six have a Welsh remit (five of them specifically). Several recent studies, notably R. H. C. Davis's The Medieval Warhorse: Origin, Development and Redevelopment (1989), have reflected a growth of interest in the significance of horses and horsemanship in medieval Europe. Such works, however, often betray ignorance of the Welsh dimension and of the wealth of material contained in Welsh-language sources. The Horse in Celtic Culture handsomely supplies that lack. Not only does it present detailed and specific analysis of nine complementary aspects of its theme, but it also gives a remarkably full guide to references and source material on the significance of horses in the cultural context of medieval Wales and beyond. The first chapter, by Miranda Aldhouse Green, is an archaeologist's masterly examination of horse symbolism in a thousand years of pagan Celtic Europe, from around 600 BC to AD 400. Three areas of evidence are considered: the kind of ritual which recurs in connection with the sacrificial deposition of horse remains; images of horses in the pre-Roman Iron Age; and deities and horsemen in Romano-Celtic Europe, including