[Horses](horses.md) # Celtic Horses § 2 used to draw a light chariot § Beauty, speed, bravery, and sexual vigor § Aristocratic Warrior Elite § Solar: □ Sufficient speed and prestige to carry the sky-god into battle Coins show "a single horse, a chariot wheel and a great spoked solar disc in the sky o "The horse was revered in the Celtic world for its beauty, speed, bravery and sexual vigor, and this animal became a symbol of the aristocratic warrior elite of Celtic society..." o "Many cults were associated with horses: warrior-gods, such as Mars Corotiacus at Martlesham n Suffolk, were depicted in iconography on horseback; and there is evidence, too, that the horse was perceived as a solar animal. Horse sacrifice was rare, but significant in its reflection of a very real loss to its owner and the community. The quartered bodies of two horses were found in a ritual deposit of the sixth century BC in the cave of Byciskala in Czechoslovakia;and the later Iron Agge chariot−burial of the King^′ s Barrow in East Yorkshire cotained the horse−team as well as th chariot and is owner." o Epona (goddess) from epos "horse" "She was sufficiently important to have a Roman festival, on 18 December. [Her] worshippers were drawn from all sections of society: in military areas of the Rhine and Danube she was venerated by cavalry officers of the Roman army, as a protectress of both horseman and animal. Elsewhere, especially in Burgundy, [she] was worshipped as a domestic deity, goddess of...horse-breeding and, more generally, of abundance and prosperity." o "she is always depicted in company with horses, either riding sidesaddle on a mare or between two or more horses or ponies...Burgundian images frequently portray a sleeping or suckling foal beneath Epona's mare. [She] was essentially a Gaulish divinity, although dedications occur as far away as Plovdiv in Bulgaria. There is little evidence for [her] cult in Britain, but a bronze statuette from Wiltshire shows the goddess with two ponies, a male and a female, whom she feeds wth corn." o "Irish and Welsh mythology contains a great deal of horse-symbolism: Macha, an Irish horse-goddess, outran the Ulster king's team in a race; and the Welsh Rhiannon had a close affinity with horses, and may herself have been a horse-goddess." Source: [[green-mi1990]]