Hi, I’m Mike Rugnetta and this is Crashcourse Mythology.
Today we’re moving on from the scary monsters of the last episode to nice, mythical... horses.
Well, some of them are nice.
Some are terrible - shocking!
I know.
[Intro] Horses are domestic animals that have been
inextricable from human life in many cultures for a loooong time.
So it makes sense there are a ton of mythical horses.
If you’re Apollo, your mythical horses can even fly!
I’ll take that over a Tesla any day!
But the beginning of our mythical horse history doesn’t end at the Greeks and Romans, oh
no!
According to Plutarch, the Egyptian god Osiris once asked his son Horus which animal would
be most useful in battle.
Horus chooses the hors-es.
When Osiris asks why he doesn’t go for something more fierce like the lion, Horus answers that
a lion is good for saving a man in danger, but a horse is best for “cutting off the
flight of the enemy and annihilating him.”[1] This answer convinces Osiris that Horus is
ready to become a warrior.
Svaldilfari is a famous mythical horse from Norse mythology.
Thats right - this horse is a Norse, of course, of course.
He’s a true power-horse (which means he’s got lots of… horse power…I guess) and
he helps a mysterious builder complete a wall around Asgard...almost.
v Y’see, the wall is being built because if
the builder completes it, he gets to marry Freya, the goddess of love, and sex and beauty...and
war and death.
The Aesir don’t want some rando marrying Freya, so they give this dude an impossible
task: he has a single season to complete his labor.
When it looks like the builder is going to complete his task with the help of Svadilfari,
Loki transforms himself into a beautiful mare and … distracts Svadilfari.
Without his magic horse friend, the builder fails and Freya escapes.
Also, they kill the builder and horse-Loki gives birth to an eight-legged baby.
They name this horse Sleipnir, and Odin takes it as his personal steed.
There are myths about real, historical horses as well, like Bucephalus, the 4th century
BCE steed of Alexander the Great.
Initially Bucephalus was untameable, but even as a thirteen-year-old, Alexander figured
it out.
He realized that Bucephalus lost it when he saw his shadow, so he turned the horse toward
the sun, and his shadow... was behind him.
Clever!
Another famous equine is Al-Buraq, Muhammad’s horse.
According to a tale from the hadith, Al-Buraq carried Muhammad on his journeyv from Mecca
to Jerusalem and back in a single evening, including a stop in the heavens.
In Persian imagery, Al-Buraq is often pictured with wings and a human face.
And speaking of horses with human features, let’s take our own mythical journey back
to the Greco-Roman tradition and talk about … centaurs!
Centaurs have the body of a horse, and the head and torso of a person.
Most myths describe centaurs as more animal than human; often they personify human lust,
and their manimal hybridity puts them in the same monstrous category as werewolves or fawns.
[stage whisper] Or Thoth.
Who is also monstrously handsome.
God, just look at him.
One of the most famous centaur stories revolves around a lot of monstrous lust.
It’s the wedding of King Perithoos of the Lapiths to Hippodameia.
(extra foreshadowing: Hippodemeia means “tamer of horses.”)
Perithoos and Hippodameia invite a number of centaurs to come celebrate, and when they
show up, they hit the open bar pretty hard.
The centaurs get wasted, and one of them, Eurythion tries to rape Hippodameia.
A brawl ensues, which grows to a full scale battle that becomes known as the Centauromachy.
The whole story is immortalized in the metopes of the Parthenon and also in a relief by Michelangelo...
his final work.
While we’re confident sayinging drunk centaurs come from sober centaurs… this leaves unanswered
the question: where do SOBER centaurs come from?
In one myth Apollo’s son, Centauros, mates with a horse.
Another myth claims that centaurs are the offspring of Kronos and Philyra.
Kronos and Philyra had been *ahem* horsing around... for a while when Rhea, Kronos’s
titan wife, burst in on them.
Kronos gets so spooked that he transforms into a horse and gallops out of bed.
All’s well that end’s well except… nine months later Philyra gives birth to Chiron
who’s - you guessed it - a centaur.
Chiron is less aggressive than other centaurs, and becomes famous for his wisdom.
He goes on to teach Achilles and Asclepius the healer, and in one set of very important
mythological stories... is the director of activities at Camp Half-Blood.
Centaurs have a rather ambivalent reputation, but there’s one Greek horse who’s a real
solid dude … horse [[[happy thumbs up gestures]]].
Our favorite winged steed: Pegasus.
Pegasus is born when the hero Perseus decapitates the Gorgon Medusa.
He has a whole plan - mirrored shield, very sharp sword, and it’s off with her head!
As Perseus stuffs Medusa’s head into a magic sack, blood pours from the monster’s neck,
and creates a magnificent, winged white horse.
In some versions of the story, Pegasus lets Perseus jump right on, and the two escape
the rest of the Gorgons.
In other versions Pegasus behaves like a wild horse and flies away.
Perseus has to chase after him with his winged sandals.
Eventually, Athena catches and tames Pegasus then lends him back to Perseus.
The two go rescue princess Andromeda, who’s been stripped naked, chained to a rock, and
molested by a sea monster.
All because her mother boasted about how beautiful she is.
Don’t boast when there are gods around, they always take it SUPER personal.
After the rescue, Perseus gives Pegasus back to Athena and the horse becomes a friend of
the Muses.
But, to be fair, Pegasus isn’t always so helpful.
Thoughtbubble, take us to the dark side of the… horse.
The warrior Bellerophon decides that he wants to tame Pegasus.
He spends the night at Athena’s temple, receives a golden bridle, and some instruction
and ... everything goes according to plan.
Pegasus tamed!
Huh - that was easy.
Thanks Thoughtbub–NAWWWW JK because things get real for real when Bellerophon, who has
been falsely accused of adultery, is sent on a quest to kill the Chimaera, a fire-breathing
monster with a lion’s body, a goat’s head, and a serpent’s tail.
Bellerophon and Pegasus fly off to fight the Chimaera.
With Pegasus’ help, Bellerophon stabs the chimaera in the mouth.
The fire breath melts his sword and the monster chokes on the molten metal.
After the Chimaera, Pegasus and Bellerophon manage a couple other heroic buddy victories.
Iobates, the king who sent him on his quest, realizes that this guy is probably innocent
and awards Bellerophon his daughter Philonoe’s hand in marriage.
Then stuff starts to get real, for real, FOR REAL.
Instead of enjoying domestic bliss, Bellerophon decides that he deserves to be on Olympus
alongside other heroes like Herakles.
And now that he’s tamed Pegasus, he’s just going to hop on and fly up to Olympus
to take what he feels is his rightful place.
I’m sure, out of all the ambitious dudes in all of mythology, Bellerophon’ll be the
ONE this works out for, right?
WRONG Zeus overhears Bellerophon bragging about his plan.
WHAT’D I JUST SAY ABOUT BOASTING?
The god sends a gadfly to bite Pegasus on the butt.
The horse rears up and throws Bellerophon.
The arrogant hero falls to his death, while Pegasus flies on to Olympus alone.
There, Zeus makes him his pack horse, where he carries Zeus’ thunderbolts around - The
horse will be with Zeus ... always.
Thanks, Thoughtbubble.
And, finally: we can’t do an episode on mythical horses without talking about unicorns.
The Greeks and Romans thought unicorns were real -- animals with a horse’s body, a stag’s
head, elephant’s feet, a boar’s tail, and a three-and-a-half-foot horn.
Elephant feet?
Really.
What a mess!
In Medieval Europe, unicorns became an important symbol in art and allegory.
By this point, unicorns had lost many of their features, and were represented mostly as majestic
horses with a single horn protruding from their foreheads.
It’s easy to see the phallic symbolism of such horns, but unicorns were also symbols
of chastity.
It was believed that they couldn’t be captured through force, but would willingly lay their
heads in the lap of a young virgin.
So when unicorns appear alongside virgins in medieval art, like the famous unicorn tapestries,
the virgin is meant to symbolize Mary.
This is how the unicorn became a symbol of Jesus, as well... with images of unicorn killing
acting as an allegory for the crucifixion.[2] There are unicorns in east Asian mythology
too.
Qilin, the Chinese unicorn, has the body of an antelope, an ox’s tail, and a twelve-foot
long horn.
Its appearance portends momentous changes -- like the birth or death of a king.
According to one myth, Qilin appeared on the banks of a river to give legendary emperor
Fu Hsi magical signs that would inspire Chinese writing.[3]
Horses and their mythical relatives have a complicated relationship to humans.
They can represent our worst impulses, as centaurs do, or a boon companion like the
monster-fighting Pegasus.
The wide range of their symbolism makes sense - given the wide range of their place in human
life.
Horses have been important human companions for a long, long time: they’ve been transportation,
pack animals, laborers, and even… friends?
Horses helped so many cultures experience, and understand, their landscape.
So it makes sense we’d want to tell stories about them - sorta, actually, how we do with
cars today… when you think about it.
I’m fine with calling The Fast and the Furious franchise a modern epic.
Thanks for watching.
See you next time, when we continue our survey of mythical monsters with that rowdy lot you
should NEVER make a deal with: Dragons.
Crash Course Mythology is filmed in the Chad and Stacey Emigholz
studio in Indianapolis, IN, and is produced with the help of all these nice people.
Our animation team is Thought Café.
Crash Course exists thanks to the generous support of our patrons at Patreon.
Patreon is a voluntary subscription service where you can support the content you love
through a monthly donation, and help keep Crash Course free, for everyone, forever.
Thanks for watching, and for putting up with all our horse puns.
WE’RE JUST HORSIN’ AROUND.
Neigh, BUT SERIOUSLY hope you got a kick out of this episode.
________________ [1] Quoted in Sax, B. The Mythical Zoo. p
198 [2] Sax, B. p. 202
[3] Rosen, p. 73