The Shetland Pony

CHAPTER I.. The Early History.

The Early History.

A breed of small horses appears to have been the first Scottish domestic animal to attract that attention which British livestock now commands so generally. Dion Cassius, as translated by Holinshed, says of the “Calidons,” in the second century of our era, that “they fight in wagons, and have little light and swift horses, which are also very swiftie, and stand at their feet with like stedfastness;” and “St Austin” is said by Hamilton Smith to describe how “Mannii or poneys brought from Britain were chiefly in use among strolling performers, to exhibit in feats of their craft.” This race of small horses survives in the Shetland pony.

It has long been regarded as practically certain that the Shetland Islands possessed a native pony before the Scandinavian invasion and settlement of the ninth and subsequent centuries. Hitherto this view has been supported only by the fact that the Bressay Stone—an accredited relic of the period of Celtic Christianity in Shetland—displays a representation of a pony or small horse. Now, however, we are able to rely on a much more definite and conclusive piece of evidence, bones having been found, in the summer of 1911, buried in the kitchen midden of the Pictish broch or village at Sumburgh, which are identified (by Professor Cossar Ewart) as part of the skeleton of a pony not more than twelve hands high, and as being of ancient date. This fresh evidence places beyond dispute the fact that the pony was a native of Shetland in very early times.

We also know from rock-drawings, which are so ancient that their origin is lost in antiquity, that horses or ponies were found in Norway at a time lying beyond the beginning of history; and coming nearer to our time, we have clear and definite records showing that in the sixteenth century breeds of small ponies were regarded as belonging characteristically to Norway and Sweden. Olaus Magnus records that: “There are many Herds of small Horses but they are very strong; for by their strength and agility they exceed many greater bodied Horses; and Forraign and Domestic Chapmen buy them for their pleasure, and transport them into remote lands, to be sold as Wonders of Nature. For they are most ingenious, that they can be taught by them to dance and jump at the sound of the Drum or Trumpet; and it is their Exercise by such shews to get gain. Moreover, they are taught to leap through hoops of Iron or Lead, not very large, as Dogs do, and they will turn themselves about with wonderful swiftness.

“Also being called by their proper names, they do it, more or less, as they are commanded.

“These horses feed, when there is necessity, with nothing but broiled Fish and Fir-tree wood; and they will drink ale and Wine till they be drunk.”

And again: “The Norway horses are small of stature but wonderful strong and swift to pass over mountains and stony ways; but those of Sweden and Gothland will travel incessantly, and very swiftly with more meat, over Lakes and high Hills and deep Thickets. But those of Oeland, because they are small, are more for sight than service, though amongst them there are found of a different kind that are notable for labour.

“Also the Finland horses are of good qualities.”

The Scandinavian horses were not all alike in merit, for Gervase Markham says:

“Next, then, I place the Sweathland horse who is a horse of little stature, lesser good shape, but least vertue; they are for the most part pied, with white legges and wall eyes; they want strength for the warres, and courage for journeying; so that I conclude they are better to look upon than imploy.”

These records, combined with the strong family resemblance between Norwegian ponies and certain types of Shetland pony, lead us to conjecture that there is either some extent of common ancestry in those two breeds or some cross, near or remote, of one with the other. It is probable that the Scandinavian invaders, whose literature and mythology as well as their place-names display a deep interest in horses, may have brought horses with them to Orkney and Shetland. With this common element, however, we also find a real difference.

While some Shetland ponies of the present-day closely resemble the Norwegian, there are others which belong to a wholly different type—ponies whose characteristics can only be described by the general term of “Oriental,” long-shouldered, fine-boned, small in head, and with an unmistakable Arab outlook. Such a type as this does not occur in the Scandinavian breeds; and its existence proves clearly the presence in the Shetland pony of some ancestral element not found in the Scandinavian horse. This is all the more clearly shown by the fact that the Shetland ponies of this Oriental type do not form pure continuous or separate strains within the breed, but crop out here and there, sometimes the parents, and sometimes the progeny, of ponies apparently purely Scandinavian. They are evidently reversions to an ancestral type which has deeply influenced the breed as a whole and remains an ineradicable element in it. No facts are yet available to show whether these Shetland ponies of Oriental character could be so interbred as to produce a race breeding true to this type. The attempt has never been made; since the general tendency of recent breeders has been rather to neglect and eliminate this kind of pony.

The existence of this strain in the Shetland pony is undeniable, however we may account for it; but, in attempting to explain it, we are almost entirely in the realm of conjecture. Two possible sources of an actual Oriental cross offer themselves for consideration.

In the year 1150 Jarl Rögnvald of Orkney and Shetland, while visiting Norway, became imbued with the idea of leading a Crusade to the Holy Land; and two years later he set out from Orkney for Jerusalem, arrived there after many adventures, returned by way of Constantinople to Apulia, and travelled thence on horseback to Denmark.

The Orkneyinga Saga records the journey: “From there they sailed west to Púll (Apulia). Earl Rögnvald, Erling, Bishop William, and most others of their noblest men left their ships there, procured horses and rode to Rómaborg (Rome), and then from Róm until they came to Denmark. From there they went to Norway where the people were glad to see them. This journey became very famous, and all those who had made it were considered greater men than before.”

It remains a matter of wholly uninformed conjecture whether these war-worn travellers were so bound in affection and admiration to the equine companions of their journeys and adventures that, instead of leaving them in Denmark, they brought them home to Orkney and Shetland, just as in our day British soldiers brought back to our shores the Basuto ponies that had won their hearts on the African veldt. It is a question to which there is no answer.

We come scarcely nearer to anything that can be accounted as proof when we bring the Shetland pony within the orbit of the vivid and entrancing drama of the Spanish Armada.

Legend has always borne that the Armada, steering its stricken course round the North of Scotland and through the Irish Sea, left horses scattered along the coasts in Shetland, Lewis, Mull, Galloway, and on the Irish shores. The records taken at close quarters come tantalisingly near to evidence; but they never quite reach that level, so far as Shetland is concerned.

It is beyond doubt that a Spanish ship, the Gran Grifon, Capitana (flagship), was wrecked on the Fair Isle, and that this was the flagship of the Armada de Urcas, commanded by Gomez de Medina. But “John de la Conido of Lekit in Biskey marriner,” under examination, “saith after the English Fleet parted from them, the Spanish Fleet cast out all the horses and mules into the sea to save their water, which were carried in certain hulks provided for the purpose.” These hulks (urcas), therefore, contained the horses of the Armada; and the fact that their flagship was wrecked on the Fair Isle seems to bring the Spanish horses to the very coast of Shetland.

Whether they landed on that coast or not we may guess almost as we please. But if they did attain it, what kind of horses were they? The Spanish war-horse of that time, as we find it in the pictures of Velasquez, is much more Belgian than Arab, and by no means a likely source of Oriental type or of any good pony strain. On the other hand, there is considerable weight of legendary evidence in support of the view that horses carried by the Armada made an improvement in British breeds. “The fame of Newmarket,” says Sheardown, “begins soon after the destruction of the Spanish Armada. Some horses which had escaped from the wrecked vessels are said to have been exhibited at that place and to have astonished those who beheld their extraordinary swiftness.”

Continue reading The Shetland Pony free in the Wunder reader →