Border Control - Hadrian's Wall - Cavalry - Foreign influences? - Size - Colour - The Horse Goddess

Colour.

Primitive pony stock.

The earliest northern pony stock may have been brown in colour. Brown to dun, in various shades, is a common “primitive” equine colour range. Several of the oldest present day Fell pony men strongly prefer a dark brown pony (black with tan muzzle) because they say it cannot be beaten for hardiness. "Them broon 'uns are bad t'kill on t'fell!"

Foreign colour range

There is, however, wide scope to guess at the colours of any imported stock that may have mixed with the natives.

Virgil, the Roman poet writing about agriculture around 29 BC, liked bays and greys best and disliked white or yellow horses. White horses were used as sacred diviners by the northern Germanic tribes, and the county of Kent, one of the areas that they settled in Britain, still has a white horse as its symbol. Palladius in the 4th Century AD described the horse colours that he knew: “chestnut, golden, albino, bay, brown, fawn, yellowish, checkered [spotted? dappled?], dead white, piebald, glistening white, black, dark. Of less value... black mixed with albino or chestnut, gray with any other colour, dappled, spotted, mouse-colour, or duskier.” (ref.) Britain was part of the civilised world and was open to trade as well as to military movements. A wide range of horse colours was available to influence its stock. But literary evidence to show those colours is sadly lacking.

The only local reference related to the Fell's homeland comes from Taliesin, the Welsh bard. One translation says that King Arthur took "creamy" or "pale" horses from the area of the Wall (Dent). But even this is open to dispute, as the Old Welsh word translated as "wall" may mean not mean Hadrian's Wall in the northern border country.

Exotic colours do not persist

What is notable is that exotic colours did not appear to persist in Britain: it is mainly brown, bay, dun, black, grey and occasionally chestnut that seem to have been recorded in later English lists and illustrations.

At the time of Henry VIII (Battle of Flodden, 1513) the commonest colour for ponies either side of the Pennine area seems to have been grey (Dent).

Until the 1960s, brown or dark bay Fell ponies were each as common as black ones (see 1913 colours of foals). Black did not become predominant in the Fell breed until the second half of the 20th century. 4 chestnut Fells were registered prior to the First World War; there were two or three pie or skewbalds; and occasional roans and duns persisted into the later 20th C. In 1969 the Fell Pony Society News reported that blue and red roan ponies were still occasionally foaled in Mr W Winder's herd at Caldbeck; 8241 Mountain Gipsy by Mountain Jester 1409, was red roan. She threw blue or red roan foals although put to a black stallion. Solid coloured ponies occasionally show white flecking, with single white hairs showing on the flanks and/or tail head, and unrelated to ageing.

Liver chestnut Fells have occasionally been bred in more recent times, but not registered.

Physique

When you compare modern Fells with photographs of their late 19th Century predecessors you can see they are now more heavily feathered around the legs and feet, and have less steeply sloped quarters and shoulders. Breeders say that modern ponies show more bone but they are reserved about its quality; older ponies are said to have had flatter bone, clean and flinty. Roman ponies are unlikely to have been as big as the modern Fell.

Today's "show" Fells often look more thickset, but this is also partly because the ponies run on better, smaller, grazing areas and need to exercise less to select their food. They probably also do less work than the early stock that were photographed.

Hairiness: literary and pictorial evidence.

Xenophon, the Greek cavalry commander whose writings (430-354 BC) are the earliest surviving equestrian record, approves a horse with shaggy "shanks" or lower legs. He describes with approval "crinkly" manes and tails. Xenophon appears to have liked manes left long, rather than hogged or trimmed as was apparently the Greek fashion. Other writers from classical times, such as Sophocles, also describe horses having their manes removed. Xenophon, though, requires a long enough mane to be grasped during mounting.

Roman statues and carvings of horses (see Epona) suggest that manes were either kept hogged or were shortened. Fetlock hair tufts ("foot locks") are in evidence in many carvings and drawings throughout history, though none are as profuse as those of "feathered" modern horses and ponies. Pictish ponies are shown in some carvings with long manes, but with clean legs.

Border Control - Hadrian's Wall - Cavalry - Foreign influences? - Size - Colour - The Horse Goddess