Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/237

Rh the Museum of Natural History of Copenhagen, who pronounced them to have been the remains of three stallions of middle size. But the strangest thing is, that the skulls show the marks of heavy sword-cuts, which we are told could not have been inflicted while the animal was alive. Other portions showed that the horses had been pierced with arrows and javelins, while some of the bones had been gnawed by wolves or large dogs. There is here clearly something more than the mere death of the horse in battle. The enemy in such a case would never have taken the trouble to hew away at the skull, 'lying,' we are told, 'on the ground before him,' and that. Professor Steenstrap is inclined to think, when the lower jaw had been separated from the upper, and when the bones were no longer covered with flesh. All this leads us irresistibly to think of some sacrificial ceremony, and of the famous proscription of horse-flesh by the Christian missionaries. Horse-flesh must have been held to be an unchristian diet only because it was in some way connected with the idolatrous worship of the Northmen; the Mosaic prohibition could not have been urged by men who doubtless ate hogs, hares, and eels, without scruple. But then Professor Steenstrap tells us, that no 'such marks have been discovered on the horse-bones from Nydam as could indicate a severance of the limbs, or that the flesh had been eaten." These appear to have been war-horses, and possibly at this time shoes may not have been worn at all frequently. We have seen that in France and Germany, long after shoeing was known, it was not universally practised.