The Swiftness of Life

Just Horsin' Around
It all started this morning while watching network television and their spinning of the great decider's big victory over John "the Loser" Kerry and his backfiring joke. There were hints throughout these televized bullshit sessions that perhaps our "president" is afterall a noble man who has also perhaps all along had a plan in his altered-states mind for us getting out of Iraq, or as one bashed-in-the-head journalist put it: perhaps our "president" (he was never honestly elected president; he's the first president EVER to be appointed president by the Supreme (Joke of a ) Court) knew all along that when Saddam was finally brought to justice ("to be hanged by the neck until dead"--sounds like something rather Old West American), Iraq would unify and alas democracy would then start working like a charm and dammit, we'll be damned to, if Commander in Chief George "The Great Decider" Bush knew all along we were in Iraq to revenge Saddam threatening to kill his old Pappy--old gnarly wimpy Pappy by now--kicking 90 in the ass by now, isn't he?--and once that "mission was accomplished" then everything will be hunky-dory just like the Great Decider said and we can now abandon Iraq--well, don't worry, we still have the world's largest and most heavily fortified Embassy in Baghdad--the Green Zone--don't worry, that ain't goin' nowhere; and, by the way, neither is our control of Iraq oil. Oh, no, don't worry at all about that oil; that's ours, pal.

NOW, we can move on to our next objective: WAR WITH IRAN. Yes, Iran is in the Axis of Evil; one of the original members. If you recall Bush's great "Axis of Evil" speech, Iran was in the Axis before Iraq.

One of The Daily Growler staffers called one of the buncombe-bound teevee host rats a "horse's ass" and some of us got to wondering, "How did a horse's ass become a symbol for a knuckleheaded homo sapien?"

We went looking for horses.

Horsa
Two legendary gentlemen, Horsa and Hengist, were the heads of the first Saxon war bands to settle in Merry Ole England at the bequest of Vortigern, a Brython (Briton) war lord, who needed the Anglo-Saxons as mercenaries against the Picts, the ancient inhabitants of Scotland, before what we know as the Scots came to Argyll from Northern Ireland in the 5th Century, whose kingdom survived until the 9th Century when they were finally overthrown by Ken Mac Alpine, King of Dalriada (Irish state in Scotland) (see the McAlpin Hotel in New York City). "Picts," by the way, comes from the Latin picti, "painted," the Picts being known as "the Tattooed Men."

Horsa is said to have died in the Battle of Aylesford in 455; Hengist is said to have ruled in Kent until his death in 488.

So what the hell do these two Saxon birds have to do with horses?

Horsa comes from the English "horse." Hengist comes from the German word "hengst" for "stallion."

The first Anglo-Saxons to settle in England were indeed "horses's asses."

Poseidon--according to Western mythology, created the horse. The "sea horse"? we ask.

In the Catacombs--horse emblems were everywhere; they symbolized "the swiftness of life." Whoaaaa!

Horse foods--we eat horse parsley, horse radish, and horse mushrooms. Some of us love horse T-bones and sirloins.

The Brazen Horse--a magic horse given to the King of Sarra, Cambuscan (see Chaucer's Squire's Tale), by the King of Arabia and India. You gave this horse orders to take you somewhere and then you turned a pin in this his ear and then he would obey your orders and take you anywhere you wanted to go. (See also Clavileno el Aligero in Don Quixote, a horse made to work by twisting a wooden peg in his ear. Ah, everything's related.)

The Flesh-eating Horses--sounds interesting, right? These equine carnivors were the property of the Tyrant of Thrace, Diomedes. He fed his horses the flesh of strangers who visited his kingdom. The Mighty Man himself, the Hulk Hogan of his day, Hercules, put an end to Diomedes and as just deserts, fed his old carcass to those flesh-eating horses. Irony is necessary even to make myths work.

The White Horse--not the tavern on Hudson Street in New York City where Dylan Thomas crashed to the floor one fine night and ended up dead the next morning in St. Vincent's Hospital. Nope. But guess where the White Horse symbolism comes from? You know, like the Protestant-Christian (Anglo-Saxon) Jesus is coming back to kingdomize the world on a big white horse--from out of the heavens--you believe this shit? The White Horse is the emblem of Kent, the English home of the Anglo-Saxons. Source of all those "chalk white horses" all over the English countryside?

To Irish poets, white horses are the white-capped waves that roll in ashore on the lakes of Killarney.

The Wooden Horse--an old form of military punishment was called "riding the wooden horse"--this horse's back was a beam of oak wood with heavy firelocks (early flintlock rifles--very heavy) binding the "rider's" legs in place to make the ride more painful.

Wooden Horse--an ancient sailing ship. Iron Horse--an old steam locomotive.

Arion--Herc's (Hercules) horse. "Its right feet were those of a man, it spoke with a human voice, and ran with incredible swiftness."

Bucephalus--Alexander the Great's horse. Alexander was the only dude who could ride old Bucephalus (it means "ox head") because Bucie was so big he had to kneel down to accept a rider and he would only kneel down for Alex. When Bucie died, Alexander built the city of Bucephala for his tomb.

Copenhagen--the Duke of Wellington's horse at the Battle of Waterloo.

Grizzle--"all skin and bones"--the horse of Dr. Syntax. If you'd like to see a print of old Doc Syntax on Grizzle, check this site out:

http://homepages.tesco.net/~patio/syntax/syntax.htm

Or, hey, check out this modern Dr. Syntax--interesting English site:

http://web.grinnell.edu/individuals/dobbs/DrSyntax/

Are we Flogging a dead horse?

thegrowlingwolf is still at large somewhere. He was sighted at the Mari Sandoz State Historical Marker way out in the middle of Survey Valley, but we don't believe it.

thehorsingaroundstaff
For The Daily Growler