Kind, gentle steed, nobly standing,
      Four shoes will I put on your feet,
      Firm and good, that you’ll be fleet,
      That is Donar’s hammer saying.

      To the woods and homeward go,
      Always on the straight road thro’,
      Far from what is bad, still fleeing,
      That is Donar’s hammer saying.

Should wounds and pain become distressing,
Blood to blood shall flow,
Bone to bone shall grow,
That is Donar’s hammer saying.

Carry the rider, true little steed,
Onward to all good luck bringing;
Carry him thence and back with speed,
That is Donar’s hammer saying.

—­Old Meresburger Song.

The horse appeared comparatively late in the group of domestic animals.  In searching the monuments of the ancients, which have furnished the foundation for our present culture, that is, of the littoral inhabitants of the Mediterranean, and of the people of Mesopotamia, we find in Egypt the first traces of the horse.  But even here it appears late, on the monuments of the first ruling patricians of human origin.[2] Especially during the period of Memphis (I-X Dynasty), then under the rules of Thebes (XI-XVI Dynasty), there is no trace of the horse.

   [Footnote 2:  Until the time Menes, with whom historical times
   begin, ruled in Egypt among visionary heroes or mythological
   gods.]

It is first in the transition period, from the late rule of Thebes (XVII-XX Dynasty) to the so-called period of Sut (XXI-XXX Dynasty) that there appears, in the wall pictures of the Pharaohs’ tombs, representations of the horse.  The oldest, now known, picture of the horse is found on the walls of the tombs of Seti I. (1458-1507 B.C.) under whose reign the Israelite wandered from Egypt.  The horses of the mortuary pictures are very well drawn, and have an unmistakable oriental type.  There has therefore undoubtedly existed in Egypt high culture, for over 4,000 years, without representation of the horse, which was the next animal domesticated after the cat.

From this time on we find the horse frequently represented both by the vainglorious despots of Mesopotamia and on the so-called Etruscan vases, which appeared after the influence of Greek art, when, on almost every urn, horses in lively action and in various forms of bodily development, almost always of an oriental type, are to be recognized.  But neither here, nor in Homer, nor in the many later representations of the horse on the Roman triumphal arches, etc., are to be found horses whose hoofs have any trace of protection.  Records, which describe to us the misfortunes of armies, whose horses had run their feet sore, we find on the contrary at a very early time, as in Diodorus, regarding the cavalry of Alexander the Great, in Xenophon, regarding the retreat of the ten thousand, in Polybius, regarding the cavalry of Hannibal in Etruria, etc.  It is also known that the cavalry of the linguist King of Pontus, Mithridates the Great, at times and specially at the siege of Cyzicus were delayed, in order to let the hoofs of the horses grow.