# Talk:History of the horse in Britain

Hi, just wondering if we want to bring Pitke into the sandbox to help find cool images.  I'd think some maps of Ice Age UK would be cool, as would art, archaeological objects, etc.  Pitke is definitely the guru of commons.  What think you?  Montanabw(talk) 23:29, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Definitely; I was thinking what would make good pictures last night.ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 08:13, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Full text of http://www.jstor.org/pss/4422462 needed (the Polden Hill hoard - loads of late pre-Roman Iron Age horse / chariot trappings)

yes, send me an e-amil and I send it to you. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:40, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Send. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:25, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Thank you :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 20:18, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Can I suggest we make a table with location, time, artifact and reference of all data. What is done here could very well be written down as a review article for a serious science article which I am wiling to facilitate. In such an article, we can actually speculate a bit more about things than here. Any takers? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll help, but mostly with wordsmithing. I'm up to my ears in a horse coat colors article in RL that I have to double-check genetics stuff on, and it's making my eyes cross. That and my job...oh yeah, that making a living thing... LOL! But yes, I'm game to help, somehow. Someone else may have to do the initial structure before I can fill in the blanks, but I DO have some good syntax for a sortable table, though you can also swipe it from Appaloosa if you want to just dive in headfirst.  Montanabw(talk) 04:24, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Sure, cool idea :o)  Having completed the house-move, I may have a little more spare time soon (at least until the thumb is amenable to playing with my ponies again - I still have to finish breaking in my now-rising-seven gelding!)  I may do it initially in Dreamweaver and then convert to WikiMarkup (there's a conversion-wossname-thingie somewhere which makes life easier for us idle gets .... )  Probably won't be for a week or so yet, though if insomnia strikes in the meantime something may happen before then. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 11:48, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

How could you do that to me!  You have gone and made things that look as though they ought to be articles!  Or at least parts of other articles!  And if nobody else writes them, then I shall feel obsessively-compulsively obliged to go and fill in the gaps!  Owwooooooooooooooooooooo-arrghhhh! [cub scampers away howling and shaking head to attempt to get rid of pestersome plaguey obsession about the wrong colour links .....] ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 20:24, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Bwahahahahaaaaaa!  My evil plot is working!  [rubbing hands] However, sometimes just clicking on the red link, and then doing a search will unearth things that can be used as a piped link, which was actually my intention.  I spend hours and hours doing that for Pitke on Finnhorse, and where I screwed up, s/he found better links.  Montanabw(talk) 21:52, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
[Grrrrrrr, chomp, chomp].  I chewed 'em up and spat 'em out! (They tasted nassssty! Bu they're dead now :o)) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 23:08, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't know whether to actually put these into the article or not - but here they are so's they can be pasted in if desired rather than having to go and look them up again!
carthorses (stot, cræthors); pack horses (ealfara, seamhors); riding horses (hors, radhors, hengest); stud horses (stodmyre, gestedhors, stodhors); royalty/aristocracy's horses (thriþhengest, steda, blanca, mearh, wieg); warhorse (eoh). ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 23:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Be sure you add your source here too!  I often "park" stuff like this on a talk page so that it's easy to get at later.  (Look at the Horses in the Middle Ages talk page, we've got all sorts of crap buried in there that we've never actually used!)   May be worth a link to the linguistics pages on Old English or Middle English, as the case may be.  Kind of fun stuff! Montanabw(talk) 19:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
(Source: Neville, Jennifer (2008), Keynes, Simon; Godden, Malcolm, eds., Anglo-Saxon England: Volume 35, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-88342-3
)

You may want to add User:Ealdgyth to your sandbox invites.  She is a horse person and excellent on medieval history, particularly of England.  She was on a road trip, but is back now.  She'll have some excellent suggestions.  Montanabw(talk) 17:37, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I did issue an invite, but she hasn't yet responded (probably too busy playing catch-up after her absence, I 'spect.) I will buzz Pitke to see if she can dredge up a few more suitable pics, too :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I did the ambiguous thing on purpose :o) ... a few-more suitable / a few more-suitable ... I am feeling clever today :o) I've mentioned to Pitke that my aim is ideally to have one pic for each 4-5 inches of screen depth - i.e. one pic for each screenful of text.  I think it makes it more readable if it's not just all-blocky text on a screen, but obviously we don't want to make it pic-heavy, either. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:43, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


#### The two species of horse (Pakenham)
I have contacted Tony Stuart (University of Durham) who wrote the article in British Archaeology asking him to point us to a published source for the exact two species which were found.  Waiting to hear back at the moment. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 17:44, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


#### Yalden!
We need to know exactly what he said to teach the controversy on extinction / non-extinction. (One for Richard to fit in here?) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 17:47, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I do think (and this is just my opinion) that the article should be renamed to "History of horses in Great Britain". The title sounds a bit promotional. Jessy  T/C 23:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

We have plenty of time to discuss titles.  See Category:Horse history and evolution.  Montanabw(talk) 00:15, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
That is pretty much the kind of title I was thinking of - just bunged up any old thing for the sandbox, though! 'History of the horse in Britain', maybe.  I think the 'Great' makes it sound too modern. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 04:54, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
I would go with History of the horse in Great Britain.  Great Britain is the name of an island.  Britain has many meanings.  Yaris678 (talk) 19:38, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
I went with my own preference (stubborn like that, lol!)  To be really nit-picky, 'Great Britain' and 'Britain' are actually the names for a group of over 1,000 islands!  (see here.  'Britain' seemed to lie better with 'Briton' and 'British Isles', and ancient stuff like calling the inhabitants 'Britons' and so on, which derived (probably) from Brittany ..... stuff like that.  At least, that's my excuse :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 04:50, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Well yes, both "Britain" and "Great Britain" can be interpreted in different ways.  But if you click on the links I provided you will see what the consensus has been on Wikipedia.  i.e. the article on Great Britain is an article about an island.  The article on Britain is a disambiguation page.  I'm not massively bothered personally though.  Yaris678 (talk) 09:28, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Of course... if your intention is to be vague and the article covers more than just one island then maybe this is the best approach...  Yaris678 (talk) 09:30, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm not a Brit, so no oar in that pond, but wikipedia's disambiguation policies say that they prefer wikilinks to go to articles and not disambiguation pages as a general rule.  However, for a title, I don't see a huge issue.  All I know is that a while back there was a huge edit war over whether "Ireland" was the nation or the landmass, so if there's some dispute, it's wise to go with whatever the wiki-consensus turns out to be (until next week, when it changes...(sigh).  Montanabw(talk) 15:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Could have gone for 'in the British Isles', I suppose - but when it all boils down to it, does it really matter?  Pesky (talk) 04:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)  P.S.  Wikiland does accept 'British Isles' as an entity.  And yes, we have the island (and Ireland) ponies like Shetlands, Eriskays, Lundies, Connemaras, Kerry Bogs, and such-like.  Pesky (talk) 04:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
I think british isles would be better and more accurate given the various kingdoms and divisions there have been over long periods covered. Also think the point about the island ponies is worth taking into account.RafikiSykes (talk) 23:23, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
I think the main reason I went for "Britain" rather than "isles" is that, until comparatively recently, it was one solid land mass, rather than islands.  See my Ice Age map!  Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
The bulk of the text deals with the period when islands and multiple nations though.RafikiSykes (talk) 17:52, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Also even in the period with the doggerland etc Shetlands and the other scottish islands were still islands. Seems relevant given the shetland ponies and similar island breeds.RafikiSykes (talk) 18:21, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
This issue has already been beat to death a couple of times, Rafiki, here once and I think at the GA review.  To the point, the lead editor (not me) lives there and has a specific expertise in the subject, so if a Brit wants it to say "Britain," I'm going to respect that.  But second, and more to the point, the horse dates to prehistory, so saying "Great Britain" or "British Isles" is going to be edit war fodder to an even greater degree, as some will argue over where political boundaries are, some will argue over whether to count ALL the islands or just the mainland, etc.  Finally, the term "Britain" has a specific understanding in terms of geography and geology that sits independent of politics and history, which, because of the large scope of this article (prehistory to present), is most appropriate.  There is also a huge wiki-drama over British/Irish titling conventions in general ( and Ireland naming convention drama is even worse than Britain for drama) and so it may be best to just let sleeping dogs lie over here. Montanabw(talk) 21:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Pesky has already said"could have gone for british isles" earlier on in the section so I am just as another Brit who lives in britain adding my thoughts concerning that and will be interested in his response.RafikiSykes (talk) 23:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Also British Isles is an earlier term than Britain: The oldest mention of terms related to the formal name of Britain was made by Aristotle (c. 384–322 BC), in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, "There are two very large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and lerne".Greek "... ἐν τούτῳ γε μὴν νῆσοι μέγιστοι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι δύο, Βρεττανικαὶ λεγόμεναι, Ἀλβίων καὶ Ἰέρνη, ...", transliteration "... en toutoi ge men nesoi megistoi tynchanousin ousai dyo, Brettanikai legomenai, Albion kai Ierne, ...", Aristotle: On Sophistical Refutations. On Coming-to-be and Passing Away. On the Cosmos., 393b , page 360-361, Loeb Classical Library No. 400, London William Heinemann LTD, Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard Univeristy Press MCMLV
Well, technically, the English language didn't exist in the time of Aristotle, so I presume he actually said "Brettanikai" (LOL)?  I'll let the Brits fight over this one, all I can say is that the shorter title is more elegant.  Montanabw(talk) 23:28, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I think this could be in good enough condition to move into mainspace now.  Suggesting "History of the horse in Britain" as the title. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 11:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Groovy, should be fun to see what happens now! Montanabw(talk) 22:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Yeh, fun starts now :o) Actually, just doing the work on it was fun.  It's now nealy 5 am, I have been awake since just past 1 am, can't think of what to do, don't feel like typo-hunting, cant' sleep, beating cr4p out of clowns is bad PR / karma ..... ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 05:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the tidyups, c/e's and so on.  I think it's reading well :o)  Pesky (talk) 05:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Should we mention police horses as an exception to "By the 1980s almost all working horses had become a thing of the past, and the horse in Britain today is kept almost wholly for recreational purposes"?  Are there any other exceptions worth mentioning?  Yaris678 (talk) 15:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The statement does seem a little overbroad, might be good if somewhere there are statistics.  I know the US American Horse Council has stuff like that, X number used for show, X number for ranch work, X number for pleasure riding...  I'm pretty sure a few people still use horses for farm work, for historical preservation, if nothing else, definitely a few do over here on this side of the pond.  Montanabw(talk) 19:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
I think Police horses are now pretty much the only 'genuinely working' horses likely to be seen by the public.  Worth a mention, certainly - I shall have to try to see if I can dredge up a source for numbers.   The Army's horses are purely ceremionial now.  When I was a kid (too long ago!), we still used to see the occasional milk-float pony (or mule), and the 'rag'n'bone' ponies, but that was about it, and I haven't seen a working draught pony (as opposed to the big brewery horses) for decades.  Pesky (talk) 01:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
And our local guys (New Forest!) are of course used for work extensively in managing and rounding up the semi-feral ponies on the Forest!  How on earth could I have failed to put that in, lol!  I've been splattered in some round-ups myself  'o)  Pesky (talk) 02:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Done those two (with citations).  No numbers yet on Police horses, but I'm sure we can turn up something, somewhere :o)  Pesky (talk) 02:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads-up on that one, Yaris - I shouldn't have missed those.  My bad!  Pesky (talk) 04:40, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

No problem.  It's looking much better now.  Yaris678 (talk) 17:37, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

As far as I am aware Ireland (or the channel Islands) has never been connected to the island of Great Britain so therefore the statement "the land which now comprises the British Isles was joined to the rest of Europe" is incorrect and should read "the land which now comprises the island of Great Britain was joined to the rest of Europe". This talk page may get a visit from editors who strongly believe that using the term British Isles (whether wrong or right) should always remain and to suggest anything otherwise is simple anti British Isles POV. I will leave editors here at this article to decide if my suggested change should be incorporated. Bjmullan (talk) 22:31, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

From the (several) sources I have found, the entire area was (as in the map) just a peninsula from the north-west of Europe.  There isn't actually one 'island of Great Britain' - it's a common misconception (we have, apparently, over 1,000 islands in the British Isles group - something I didn't know, myself, until I started reading up about it - and I live here!).  Pesky (talk) 03:22, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Speaking as an ignorant Yank who lives 1000 miles from an ocean (!), I shall suggest that the Americans at WPEQ arbitrate any such disputes between Pesky and her fellow UK-ites.  I am nominating us partly because we are in total ignorance over the distinction (we just call it all "England" anyway) (  =:-O  !)  and thus could not distinguish WP:FRINGE from fact, which makes us perfect for the job (except for Ealdgyth, who actually knows a bit on the topic!)   (LOL!)
The links to the research sources for the map itself are on the map's commons page. Definitely continuous land there, right across from France through to the west coast or Ireland, including the Channel Isles, Scillies, Man, Lundy, Wight and all the rest of 'em :o)  And the ponies (past and present) themselves, of course, include the Connemaras, Kerry Bogs, Lundy Island ponies, Shetland ponies, Eriskay ponies, and all the other island ponies, as well as the mainland ones.   Pesky (talk) 21:14, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Why are these singled out?  Why the qualifier "Even (my italics) the Young's Brewery team of Shires retired from delivery ..." as if they were the last team of working brewery dray horses?  Is this London-centrism?  Go to Devizes in Wiltshire and you can see the Wadworth Brewery dray horses delivering beer, every day.  Reference here: [1]. 81.147.148.215 (talk) 16:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Good point; can you find some good sources on brewery horses still working for us?  It would be nice to be able to put some references in to those which are still working, if we can get good sources :o)  Pesky (talk) 17:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
I'll add a bit about those ones - can you find any more still-working teams?  Pesky (talk) 17:32, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Greetings to the author(s). I've read through the first half and thoroughly enjoyed it – I can't want to come back later and read more. I hope you guys continue to improve it. One suggestion so far. Could you use Cesar's autobiography as a source for the invasion of Britain and his surprise at seeing chariots? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Point us to where we can find it online, please!  It would be great to get a quotation from that :o)  And many thanks for your kind comment.  Pesky (talk) 05:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The authors of this article may be interested in including mention of Hengist and Horsa (Old English "stallion" and "horse") among the Anglo-Saxons, who are recorded, beginning with Bede, as the founding kings of Anglo-Saxon England, yet who are held by modern scholars to have in fact been important horse-related deities among the Germanic peoples who founded England—a reflex of the Proto-Indo-European divine twins. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:45, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Can you point us to some good online stuff for references, please?  And how about maybe you edit it in yourself :o)  Pesky (talk) 05:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I've added some information about Hengist and Horsa to the article. I wasn't sure exactly what the scope of this article was. Feel free to adjust prose and whatnot as needed. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Great stuff :o)  Pesky (talk) 11:43, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

This is about Britain, so the picture of a Romanian hay wagon should be removed. It does not even look like Britain. Why not use for example a cropped version of Constable's The Haywain or some other British image instead? 2.97.220.102 (talk) 19:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

That's a good point; I just wanted a picture showing basically how much hay (stacked loose, as in  days of old) could be drawn by one small horse, as opposed to the more modern heavy horse types.  If I can find a more British picture, ideally of the smaller all-around farm horse, then I will certainly change for it.  The big heavy draught breeds didn't exist in the early mediaeval period, which is the kind of period I wanted an illustration for, but I shall see what I can come up with as an alternative.  The Romanian picture isn't (at first glance) 'definitely non-British' - it could illustrate any horse of that type, doing that job.  If you could find a free-use picture of a 'farm cob' type of horse with a loose-hay wagon, could you please upload to Wikimedia Commons for us and drop a link to it over here on this page?  You may be able to find something more quickly than I can.  Thanks for the  input :o)  Pesky (talk) 23:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I think this has been resolved now, with the new image here?  Chzz  ►  11:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Which new image? :o)  Pesky (talk …stalk!) 12:53, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

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