The Early History. A breed of small horses appears to have been the first Scottish domestic animal to attract that attention which British livestock now commands so generally. Dion Cassius, as translated by Holinshed, says of the “Calidons,”in the second century of our era, that “they fight in wagons, and have little light and swift horses, which are also very swiftie, and stand at their feet with like stedfastness;” It has long been regarded as practically certain that the Shetland Islands possessed a native pony before the Scandinavian invasion and settlement of the ninth and subsequent centuries. Hitherto this view has been supported only by the fact that the Bressay Stone—an accredited relic of the period of Celtic Christianity in Shetland—displays a representation of a pony or small horse. Now, however, we are able to rely on a much more definite and conclusive piece of evidence, bones having been found, in the summer of 1911, buried in the kitchen midden of the Pictish broch or village at Sumburgh, which are identified (by Professor Cossar Ewart) as part of the skeleton of a pony not more than twelve hands high, and as being of ancient date. This fresh evidence We also know from rock-drawings, which are so ancient that their origin is lost in antiquity, that horses or ponies were found in Norway at a time lying beyond the beginning of history; and coming nearer to our time, we have clear and definite records showing that in the sixteenth century breeds of small ponies were regarded as belonging characteristically to Norway and Sweden. Olaus Magnus records that: “There are many Herds of small Horses but they are very strong; for by their strength and agility they exceed many greater bodied Horses; and Forraign and Domestic Chapmen buy them for their pleasure, and transport them into remote lands, to be sold as Wonders of Nature. For they are most ingenious, that they can be taught by them to dance and jump at the sound of the Drum or Trumpet; and it is their Exercise by such shews to get gain. “Also being called by their proper names, they do it, more or less, as they are commanded. “These horses feed, when there is necessity, with nothing but broiled Fish and Fir-tree wood; and they will drink ale and Wine till they be drunk.” And again: “The Norway horses are small of stature but wonderful strong and swift to pass over mountains and stony ways; but those of Sweden and Gothland will travel incessantly, and very swiftly with more meat, over Lakes and high Hills and deep Thickets. But those of Oeland, because they are small, are more for sight than service, though amongst them there are found of a different kind that are notable for labour. “Also the Finland horses are of good qualities.” A SCANDINAVIAN ROCK-DRAWING. The Scandinavian horses were not all alike in merit, for Gervase Markham says: “Next, then, I place the Sweathland horse who is a horse of little stature, lesser good shape, but least vertue; they are for the most part pied, with white legges and wall eyes; they want strength for the warres, and courage for journeying; so that I conclude they are better to look upon than imploy.” These records, combined with the strong family resemblance between Norwegian ponies and certain types of Shetland pony, lead us to conjecture that there is either some extent of common ancestry in those two breeds or some cross, near or remote, of one with the other. It is probable that the Scandinavian invaders, whose literature and mythology While some Shetland ponies of the present-day The existence of this strain in the Shetland pony is undeniable, however we may account for it; but, in attempting to explain it, we are almost entirely in the realm of conjecture. Two possible sources of an actual Oriental cross offer themselves for consideration. In the year 1150 Jarl RÖgnvald of Orkney and Shetland, while visiting Norway, became imbued with the idea of leading a Crusade to the Holy Land; and two years later he set out from Orkney for Jerusalem, arrived there after many adventures, returned by way of Constantinople to Apulia, and travelled thence on horseback to Denmark. The Orkneyinga Saga records the journey: It remains a matter of wholly uninformed conjecture whether these war-worn travellers were so bound in affection and admiration to the equine companions of their journeys and adventures that, instead of leaving them in Denmark, they brought them home to Orkney and Shetland, just as in our day British soldiers brought back to our shores the Basuto ponies that had won their hearts on the African veldt. It is a question to which there is no answer. We come scarcely nearer to anything that can be accounted as proof when we bring the Shetland pony within the orbit of the vivid and entrancing drama of the Spanish Armada. Legend has always borne that the Armada, steering its stricken course round the North of Scotland and through the Irish Sea, left horses scattered along the coasts in Shetland, Lewis, Mull, Galloway, and on the Irish shores. The records taken at close quarters come tantalisingly near to evidence; but they never quite reach that level, so far as Shetland is concerned. It is beyond doubt that a Spanish ship, the Gran Grifon, Capitana (flagship), was wrecked on the Fair Isle, and that this was the flagship of the Armada de Urcas, commanded by Gomez de Medina. Whether they landed on that coast or not we may guess almost as we please. But if they did attain it, what kind of horses were they? The Spanish war-horse of that time, as we find it in the pictures of Velasquez, is much more Belgian than Arab, and by no means a likely source of Oriental type or of any good pony strain. On the other hand, there is considerable weight of legendary evidence in support of the view that horses carried by the Armada made an improvement in British breeds. “The fame of Newmarket,”says Sheardown, “begins soon after the destruction of the Spanish Armada. Some horses which had escaped from the wrecked vessels are said to have been exhibited at that place and to have astonished those who beheld their extraordinary swiftness.” This record suggests that Spanish horses were the source of a distinct improvement in Apart from these possible sources of an actual Oriental cross in the Shetland pony, there remains the possibility that the original pony of Celtic Shetland was itself similar in type and origin to the Oriental horse, and was, in fact, derived from the same stock which, in other conditions, has given rise to the Arab and the thoroughbred. The investigations of Professor Cossar Ewart Whatever its earlier history may be, the Shetland pony begins to emerge in definite records during the sixteenth century. Ubaldini wrote in 1568—“Their horses are very small and tiny in stature, not bigger than asses, nevertheless they are very strong in endurance.” THE HORSE ON THE BRESSAY STONE. In 1576 we find the use of horses by the Within a few years after this the Shetland pony is clearly identified; for Captain John Smith says in 1633: “Their Horses, which they called Shelties, some of which I have seen, are little bigger than Asses, but very durable.” From this date onwards we have a continuous record of the pony, growing in definiteness as time goes on. “The horses,” says the Rev. Hugh Leigh in 1650, In 1701 we have a full and clear description by Brand which places beyond doubt the fact that the pony whose history we have traced from the vague suggestions of earlier times is the Shetland pony as we have it now. “I think the kine and sheep are of a greater size than they are in Orkney, though their horses be of a less; they have a sort of little horses called shelties, than which no other are to be had if not brought hither from other places; they are of a less size than the Orkney horses, for some will be but nine, others ten nives or handbreadths high, and they will be thought big horses there if eleven; and although so small yet they are full of vigour and life, and some not so high as others often prove to be the strongest, yea there are some whom an able man can lift in his arms, yet will they carry him and a woman behind him eight miles forward and as many back; summer or winter they never come into a house, but run upon the mountains in some places in flocks, and if at any time in winter the storm be so great that they are straitened for food, they will come down from the hills, when the ebb is in the sea, and eat the sea-ware (as likewise do the sheep), which winter “Those of a black colour are judged to be the most durable, and the pied often prove not so good; they have been more numerous than they are now; the best of them are to be had in Souston and Eston, also they are good in Waes and Yell, these of the least size are in the Northern isles of Yell and Unst. “The coldness of the air, the barrenness of the mountains on which they feed, and their hard usage may occasion them to keep so little, for if bigger horses be brought into the country, their kind within a little time will degenerate; and, indeed, in the present case we may see the wisdom of Providence, for their way being deep and mossy in many places, these lighter horses come through, when the greater and heavier would sink down; and they leap over ditches very nimbly, yea up and down rugged mosses, braes or hillocs with heavy riders upon them, which I could not look upon them, but with admiration, yea I have seen them climb up braes upon their knees, when otherwise they could not get the height overcome, so that our horses would be but little if at all serviceable there.” This statement is repeated by Martin in its essential features a few years later. Brand’s account, confirmed by Martin, completes the series of statements by which we are compelled to recognise that the Shetland pony of to-day is the lineal descendant, with or without some degree of cross-breeding, of a pony which has lived in Shetland from very early times. The characteristic which most definitely asserts itself throughout all the descriptions, and which is displayed by the Sumburgh bones, is small size; and the significance of this characteristic is greatly increased by the fact that it remains unaffected by great The common and obvious suggestion is that the ponies of Shetland were individually made small by the severity of the conditions under which they lived—that they were and are dwarfs stunted by starvation. But this suggestion is inconsistent with the undeniable result of experience, that the Shetland pony remains small, and indeed shows no tendency whatever to increase in size, when it is reared in Southern climates and generously nourished. Twenty years ago even so experienced a breeder as Mr Robert Brydon wrote of the South-country studs: “I cannot help pointing out the difficulty their owners will have to contend with in keeping the size within Stud-book requirements.” The fact is that there have always been small horses in Britain—at all events in Northern Britain. The remains recently found in the Roman camp at Newstead include horse bones which indicate that the native horses there were from 11 to 13 hands in height. In Shetland there have probably never been large horses. The size of other horses, originally larger, has been gradually increased, partly by crossing and partly by a deliberate artificial selection, until a sustained effort, forming part of a general agricultural development, has eventually produced the Clydesdale and the Shire horse of to-day. Increase of size has always, of course, been subject to the limits imposed by the available food-supply, so that while the Clydesdale has been of comparatively old standing in the These same conditions fixed other characteristics as well. They prescribed and produced The Shetland pony as every one knows it—small, robust, gay, shaggy, alert, strong of bone, short-eared, large-eyed—is the product |