‘The Legend of the Great Horse’ trilogy – Page 52 – THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT HORSE trilogy

Targa the Mongolian Warpony

Eclipsed by Shadow, is the first volume of the new trilogy adventure, “The Legend of the Great Horse,” which begins a journey that traces the history of horsemanship. In the story, the heroine, Meagan Roberts, is taken back through time by her horse, Promise. Meagan must survive humanity’s brutal past armed only with her knowledge of advanced horsemanship of the 21st century.

One of the interesting things about our relationship with horses is how slowly it developed. For many millennia mankind struggled with “conquering” the horse, when in reality simple humane treatment and empathy was the path to tapping into the equine potential. Today’s sensibly schooled horses could literally canter circles around primitive man’s poorly “broken” and brutalized mounts.

In the story, Meagan is dropped off in various time periods and must fend for herself. One such era is during Europe’s Dark or Middle Ages, when the enlightened horsemanship of Greek antiquity has been forgotten and brutality was again the norm of the day.

“Mongolian Steppe” by David Edwards | National Geographic

It was in this era that Mongolian nomads burst from their ancestral homes on the Asian plains to pillage and ransack from Russia to Poland, throughout India and the Middle East. Meagan lands amidst the united armies of Genghis Khan and is given a Mongolian warhorse mare she names Targa.

The mare is typical of her breed: stocky, short-legged and pony-sized. Meagan succeeds through empathizing with the mare and employing modern riding techniques that provide strong yet humane guidance. Their association grows into a real horse-rider partnership.

Targa illustrates how unchanged the horse’s nature is after many millennia of human “domestication.” Horses are simply too old a species to have become more than superficially adapted to mankind’s demands. Targa responds to Meagan’s enlightened empathy as horses do today; horses of primitive man would have done the same if given the opportunity.

The rampaging Mongolians cherished their horses, and their horses responded. This responsive cooperation with their riders led to wiping out alien societies, but there was no malice in the Mongolian warponies. Despite talk of the military “genius” of Genghis Khan, had Western society remembered their enlightened horsemanship instead of traveling down the path of war and brutality, they likely would not have been overrun by the superior skill of their Asian raiders.

There are many lessons in history, but one of the foremost is how spectacular are the results of empathy and harmony.

Anyone who loves horses or who loves history will love “Eclipsed by Shadow”

Throughout, the book successfully blends fiction, character and plot with history and more than solely the history of horses. I am not interested in horses, but historical fiction, but I did come to appreciate the history of horses without ever being overly bored by the book containing too many details.—Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D., author

The following is a new 5-Star review of Eclipsed by Shadow.

HISTORY IS A TALE OF HORSES

Anyone who loves horses or who loves history will love “Eclipsed by Shadow”

by Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D., and author of “The Marquette Trilogy”

“Eclipsed by Shadow” is an epic history of horses, complete with time travel, and educational material, but best of all, it is strong historical fiction.

The plot is pretty simple. Meagan learns from an eccentric neighbor lady that her newborn horse may well be “The Great Horse” of legend that has reappeared over the centuries. The Great Horse first originated as a horse meant to help Adam and Eve when they left the Garden of Eden.

I knew from what I had already heard about the book that it would include time travel and Meagan would experience how horses were used throughout the centuries by mankind.

When I started, I was a bit disappointed to see the first section went on for so long. I wanted to get right into the time travel, but once I started reading, I was thoroughly captivated by the plot and how well the author, John Royce, built up suspense in the first section. I actually think this was my favorite part of the book as Meagan learned about the legend of the Great Horse and also avoided having her horse stolen.

As for the time travel sections, the scene in prehistoric North America was brief and not quite as interesting as the later ones because after all it was prehistoric history, but I thought both the Rome and the medieval section were well done. Even though the book reads like a collection of short stories because of the different time periods that the characters do not cross over into, Royce successfully created some believable characters in each section.

Throughout, the book successfully blends fiction, character and plot with history and more than solely the history of horses. I am not interested in horses, but historical fiction, but I did come to appreciate the history of horses without ever being overly bored by the book containing too many details.

Anyone who loves horses or who loves history will love “Eclipsed by Shadow,” and readers will be impatient to read the next two volumes in this trilogy about the Great Horse.

– Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D., and author of “The Marquette Trilogy”

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Eclipsed by Shadow is the first book of the new fiction trilogy, The Legend of the Great Horse, arriving this Summer with a fresh and original look at the colorful role of horses in civilization. The story follows the time-travel adventure of a modern horsewoman lost in history.

Further information about this unique and imaginative ‘creative non-fiction’ novel can be found at TheGreatHorse.com.

The Long, Colorful Road of Horsemanship

The Legend of the Great Horse traces horsemanship from its earliest beginnings. The premise of the story is that Meagan, a horse-interested teenager of modern day, is whisked back in time to relive history … on horseback. As she travels in “jumps” from the earliest days of man’s association with horses, Meagan and the reader experience the changes in horsemanship that mirrored the advance of civilization.

A hallmark of skilled modern riding is that it looks “easy,” but it has not always been this way. The casual spectator watching well-groomed horses cantering a jumping field or half-passing down the centerline may be forgiven believing things such as “the horse is doing all the work” or “anyone could do it” etc. Riding looks easy when done well because the rider remains in balance with the horse, maintaining a fluid rhythm with the mount’s athletic motion. This is not how horsemanship has looked through most of history, and nothing we now take for granted about riding was obvious or simple for humans to discover.

The “Greek Seat”

The origins of horseback riding are lost in the mists of time, but using the horse to pull wagons, carts and chariots represented the first phase of practical horsemanship. Mounted horsemanship does not appear in clear view until antiquity, and after at least 3000 years of development it wasn’t terribly impressive. The horses were guided with nose-rings by a rider who sat far back toward the horse’s hindquarters, though the Greeks modified this by inching forward to sit on the middle of the horse’s back. It literally took the human race thousands of years to discover where, exactly, to properly sit on horseback.

To humans, horses possess an alien mind, and what seems obvious today was not “obvious” at all. As one example, stirrups were not invented until after the fall of the Roman Empire—which itself was more than 25,000 years from the days that prehistoric man’s preoccupation with the animal was shown by painting in caves. First came a “toe loop” which developed in India (c. 500BC) for the holding of the rider’s big toe. A few centuries later nomadic “Sarmatians” of southern Russia and the Balkans invented a single stirrup for use in mounting. Over the next half-millennium, Asia brought the stirrup to fruition; it was copied by Europeans and revolutionized war.

One might consider that our ancestors were not the most clever ponies in the stable, but the reason for the long period of development was that advanced horsemanship required changes in mankind’s thinking. As humanity grew sufficient empathy to discover advanced horsemanship, the modern world also began a rapid transformation into the modern age.

The Pegasii

The flying horse Pegasus is one of Western culture’s most popular and durable myths. What may be surprising to many is that the idea of a winged horse is not isolated to Greek mythology, but is a universal notion in ancient religion.

The theme of my new trilogy, The Legend of the Great Horse, is the depth of man’s partnership with horses and the animal’s foundational importance to civilization. When discussing the influence of horses it is almost impossible to throw too wide a net, and the legend of a winged horse is an example.

Pegasii

Early Christianity was combined with the Sun-worshipping belief that the Emperor departed earth upon his death in a chariot pulled by winged immortal horses, and various beliefs herald the Second Coming of Christ upon the winged horse Avatar. Islam records the gift to Adam of the winged horse Mamoun. Hindus honored Vivasvat, the Seven-Headed Sun Horse that symbolized the workings of the Seven Chakras. Buddha was said to have flown across the heavens as a white horse, and both Norse and Celtic religions had a stableful of supernatural mounts.

In modern times, mythology is remembered as a group of fantasy stories involving the gods of Olympus and exotic animals like the Chimera, Basilisk, Hydra, along with soaring Pegasus. But in the time of their practice, the “mythology” of the Greeks was their religion: a complex, inter-woven, often conflicting world enmeshed with the natural. The gods lived upon Mt. Olympus: their home could be seen by Greek villagers carrying on their daily lives.

Today’s popular conception of mythology is a pale summary of the original. We may have learned that Pegasus was a gift from the gods, or that the flying horse was the mount of Zeus with hoofbeats which caused thunder. But it is less remembered that the first gift of a horse was rejected by the people of Athens in favor of Athena’s offering of an olive tree, one of antiquity’s great examples of the wisdom of choosing butter (olive oil) instead of guns (cavalry). It is forgotten in popular imagination that that Pegasus sired a race of immortal winged horses, the Pegasii; or that Pegasus had a brother named Celeris, the mount of one of the Geminii twins (Castor, “The Horseman”) who were honored as a cult by the legions of Rome, and given placement, as was Pegasus, in his own constellation: The Colt.

The immortal Pegasii were of many colors, not only white, and they had varying powers of transport and appearance and purpose. The Pegasii were associated with dreams and inspiration, and all were benefactors of mankind or agents of the natural world.

The “legend” of Eclipsed by Shadow and the rest of The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy concerns the strangely universal idea that horses were gifted to man by the Creator. The “Great Horses” of history are descended from this first horse. Promise, the Great Horse belonging to the book’s main character, Meagan, shares the essential characteristics of the Pegasii.