Sir Holger rides his black horse, Papillon, with the dwarf, Hugi, seated in front of him. I can usually find something to say about any Andersonian passage but sometimes what I have to say reflects my own experiences and not what Anderson is writing about! In this case:
"Their descent next morning was rapid, if precarious. Often Hugi yelped as Papillon's hoofs slipped on the talus and they teetered over a blowing edge of infinity." (p. 38)
Unusually, horses' hooves are on my mind today but only because I have been in a situation where policemen had to warn us not to walk behind their horses which might have kicked backwards...
Horses are such big animals to control.
It is time for me to stop blogging and to think about something else for the rest of this evening.
3 comments:
Horses are herbivores -- they tend to be nervous, to lash out/run away. They have to be trained not to.
Mind you, some horses are nasty. I read a French cavalryman's memoires of the Napoleonic wars; he had a really, really nasty mare as his primary mount for the last 5 years.
The first thing he did after Waterloo was to shoot the mare.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: In Hugi's place I would have kept my eyes closed and prayed! (Smiles)
Exactly, I used to take riding lessons decades ago and the instructor always warned students to never ever be too near the hind legs of horses.
Mr. Stirling: Absolutely! You can never really trust horses, even if trained.
Your comments about how nasty that French cavalryman's mare was made me wonder if that was the inspiration for Rudi/Artos' mare in the Emberverse books. Rudi always had to be alert to making sure his horse didn't "accidentally" hurt other people.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, she had unfortunate early experiences with people...
In a rural/agrarian setting, you can't sentimentalize animals.
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