page_title: White horses in mythology
section_title: Christian
hierarchical_section_title: White horses in mythology / Mythologies and traditions / Abrahamic / Christian
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Św. Jerzy ze smokiem English: St. George and the dragon Русский: Чудо Георгия о змие Tempera on wood, 58.4x41.8x3.5, State Russian Museum, Sankt Petersburg
context_page_description: White horses have a special significance in the mythologies of cultures around the world. They are often associated with the sun chariot, with warrior-heroes, with fertility, or with an end-of-time saviour, but other interpretations exist as well. Both truly white horses and the more common grey horses, with completely white hair coats, were identified as "white" by various religious and cultural traditions.
context_section_description: In the New Testament, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse include one seated on a white horse and one on a pale horse – the "white" horse carried the rider Conquest (traditionally, Pestilence) while the "pale" horse carried the rider Death. However, the Greek word chloros, translated as pale, is often interpreted as sickly green or ashen grey rather than white. Later in the Book of Revelation, Christ rides a white horse out of heaven at the head of the armies of heaven to judge and make war upon the earth.
  Two Christian saints are associated with white steeds: Saint James, as patron saint of Spain, rides a white horse in his martial aspect. Saint George, the patron saint of horsemen among other things, also rides a white horse. 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.
  Gesta Francorum contains a description of the First Crusade, where soldiers fighting at Antioch claimed to have been heartened by a vision of St. George and white horses during the battle: There came out from the mountains, also, countless armies with white horses, whose standards were all white. And so, when our leaders saw this army, they ... recognised the aid of Christ, whose leaders were St. George, Mercurius, and Demetrius.
caption: A 15th-century icon of St. George from Novgorod.
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