have derived from a postulated *ekvopes ́‘cavalier’, literally ‘horse-flyer’.^66 In
the Armenian oral epic a horse is described as flying like a homing pigeon
(Sassountsy David 267).
Other epithets applied to horses in the Rigveda are va ̄jambhará-‘prize-
winning’ (1. 60. 5, al.) and vr ́
̇
s
̇apa ̄n
̇i- or vı ̄l
̇upa ̄n
̇í-‘strong-hooved’ (6. 75. 7; 1.- 11; 7. 73. 4). Corresponding compounds are found in the Iliad:
qεθλοφο ́ ροι ... πποι (22. 162, al.; -φορο = -bhará-); κρατερ.νυχα
ππου (5. 329, al.). We noted in Chapter 3 that gods’ horses have golden
manes in both the Rigveda and the Greek epic.
Peleus, Tydeus, Nestor, and a couple of other heroes of the generation
before the Trojan War bear the title Tππο ́ τα, apparently a fossilized vocative
used as a nominative in the epic language. It obviously connects them with
horses, but as a derivative of Tππο- the form is problematic. Rüdiger Schmitt
compares Latin eques equit-. Others explain it as a haplology for
Tπποπο ́ τη, or in Mycenaean ikkwopota ̄s, ‘master of horses’. Except for the
stem (for which compare δεσπο ́ τη) this would correspond exactly to Vedic
ás ́vapati-, which is a title of Indra in RV 8. 21. 3 and found later as a personal
name (Rm. 2. 1. 6, al.). If the latter view is correct, the inference is that there
was a Graeco-Aryan poetic compound *ekwopoti- (or the like), applicable to
gods and heroes.^67
In early Welsh literature the heroic status of horses is so far acknowledged
that there is in the Book of Taliesin a poem, the so-called Song of Horses
(Canu y meirch), which is a catalogue of heroes and their steeds, and several
sections of the Triads of the Island of Britain are devoted to horses that were
notable under one rubric or another.^68
The close relationship presupposed between heroes and their horses is such
that they can speak to each other at critical junctures. This motif –– like the
historical mastery of the horse –– is the common property of Indo-Europeans
and the Turkic peoples of central Asia. The horses are represented as
intelligent, indeed wise, as well as brave and loyal, and often gifted with
mantic knowledge.^69
Even the Iliad poet, who on the whole avoids anything fantastic, admits an
exchange of words between Achilles and Xanthos; the noble creature utters a
well-founded prophecy of his master’s death (19. 399–424). In an Eddic lay
Skirnir tells his horse that it is time to go on a journey, and what the two
possible outcomes are (Skírnismál 10). In another, Gudrun asks Sigurd’s horse
for news of him. ‘Grani drooped his head then, hid it in the grass, the horse
(^66) Lejeune (1974), 85 f., 116, 120–3. (^67) Cf. Schmitt (1967), 23, 130 f.
(^68) Triads 38–46; R. Bromwich (as n. 50), xcviii–cvii, 97–121.
(^69) See C. M. Bowra, Heroic Poetry (London 1952), 157–70 (speech: 165–70). Some out-of-
the-way examples are cited by Grimm (1883–8), 392.
- Arms and the Man 467