HRH

I did not watch The Funeral. I am sure it will be more or less on a loop on social media and several TV channels for the next 24 hours. 

 

I drove my old Fell pony instead and thought, as we trundled gently through the sunshine, of the carriage drivers I've known who will do it no more, and the one who said that his Fell team were "all ancient, like me."

 

Our 'Osses - when did our Fells become "ponies"?

Where does the name “the Fell pony” come from?

There is very scant evidence of British ponies in the 12 centuries between the end of Roman rule and the era of Elizabeth I. Every positive statement that can be made about them has a “but” attached to it.

Harness fittings and small pony-size 3.5” to 4” bits have survived from the Roman period and there are some sculptures which portray horses in Britain as small, eg the Roman tombstone to Flavinus in Hexham Abbey (on display at Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, in 2014), but we don’t have evidence of a local Cumbrian type, much less a breed. 

The Bayeux Tapestry shows a pack pony smaller than the fighting cavalry ponies who seem to be about 14 hands, but it is way too far south in its origins to be a reference for Northern England. 

Paintings throughout history show horses in the service of monarchs and generals, but no-one showcased the working ponies of the inhospitable North. 

We may guess that they were around—but who’s going to write about a scruffy pickup truck when there are Ferraris or Rolls Royces to admire?  

Literature

Eventually, when printed material becomes more common, evidence of local ponies appears as it does today, in literature and in trivia such as advertisements. The term “Galloway” comes into use in Shakespeare’s time (1597) referring to a small horse in common use.  Daniel Defoe in the early 1700s describes Scotland as having “the best breed of strong low horses in Britain, if not in Europe … from whence we call all small truss-strong riding horses Galloways.”

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The most specific references to local Cumbrian horses are notices in newspapers seeking information about “missing” saddle horses. “DARK BAY GALLOWAY, Eleven Hands and a Half high…. the Mane and Tail rather inclined to black, and had two or three white Saddle Marks… Reward for information leading to retrieval.”

The word “pony”

An explanation is frequently trotted out that the word “pony” traces to the Celtic horse goddess Epona. Sadly that doesn’t really hold water because her name had disappeared from common English usage by the 6^th century AD—a thousand years before the earliest known date for “powny” which is a diary entry in 1659: "Diary 18 June, I caused to bring home the powny..." and 1675 W. Cunningham's Diary, 24 May, "Sent to Glasgow for a gang of shoo's to Cuninghamheid's pownie." Both are cited by the Oxford English Dictionary which adds that “pony” comes from Scottish, apparently from French poulenet “little foal”, and that the Irish pónaí and Scottish Gaelic pònaidh are derived from the English word and not the other way around. 

In 1710  Defoe describes characters riding on “Bastard Turks, half-bred Barbs, and Union Ponies, a Kind of Horses foaled upon the Borders, and occasionally owning either Country”. That might mean he is thinking of Scottish Galloways or predecessors of the English Fell. However, since Defoe was sent to Edinburgh in 1706 to worm his way into the confidence of the Scottish Parliament and help secure the Union of England and Scotland, he may simply be poking fun at himself and at recent political history. In any case, later in the pamphlet he remarks, “it is not my business as a Historian, to be over sollicitous about the Truth of Facts” (unusual honesty on the part of a secret agent and a journalist). Perhaps it’s safest to assume he has his tongue firmly in his cheek, and just to note his use of the word “ponies.”

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Spelt “poney” the word appears in 1838 in local advertisements in the Westmorland Gazette where it is linked to the terms “Scotch horse” or “Galloway” but not yet to “Fell”. Through the 19^th Century the horses of Cumberland and Westmorland were still referred to as Fell-Galloways, and I have heard farmers even in the 21st C using the term “Gallower” about Fell ponies. 

Agricultural horses, cobs, Hackneys, Galloways and "fell ponies"

Local shows - mostly held in September after the hay crop had been cleared from the fields - divided classes for horses and ponies into various types: Agricultural horses (ie, Clydesdales and their crosses and others suitable to pull farm equipment); cobs; Hackneys; and ponies. These "ponies" were not defined as a breed but usually the classes specified height limits such as "under 14 hands" or "under 13 1/2 hands".

The earliest use of the term "fell pony" (without a capital F) that I've found so far is from the Kendal newspaper, the Westmorland Gazette, October 1953, reporting on the horse sale at Dent where trade in "fell ponies" had been better than in previous years (so the term was in use before 1853). The Penrith newspaper, the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald, 6th September, 1885 reported that at Dufton show "the entry of fell ponies was good and the competition keen". The lack of a capital F, as opposed to the G of Galloway or H of Hackney, suggests that the term "fell pony" was not a breed name yet: it was being used for "a pony suitable to live at the fell" or "pony that has been living at the fell", in the same way that modern sheep breeds like Swaledales, Roughs and Herdwicks could be grouped under the one term "fell sheep". This version of the term "fell pony" as any fell-going pony is supported by a slightly later report in the Penrith Observer of 25th October, 1887 which stated that "the Judges for Shorthorns, Cobs, Ponies and Whitefaced Sheep were Mr. W. Ellwood, Skelling and Mr, Bousfield, Langwathby," and reports under Special Prizes for Ponies the following result: "Fell-gone pony, with foal at foot - 1, Messrs. Dargue; 2. Mr.Hutchinson." (with thanks to Dorothy Ewin of Dufton)

The Polo and Riding Pony Society

In 1893 the Polo Pony Society became the Polo and Riding Pony Society and began to register native pony types suitable for breeding light horses for sport and recreation. It registered the ponies by the areas in which they were located, and stipulated that they must be at least three-quarters “native” bred. This is when the names of areas such as Wales and the Scottish Highlands began to be linked to pony registrations, and the idea of a local breed with recorded ancestry emerged in place of a local “type”. 

Agricultural Show reports

The Cumberland and Westmorland Herald reports from agricultural shows at first described classes as scheduled for Ponies not over 13½ hands, Cobs over 13½ hands and under 14½ hands, and Hackneys over 14½ hands. Hesket-New-Market (1894) and Shap (1895) were two of the first shows, after Dufton, that offered classes specifically for “Fell ponies.” 
 

Four years later the Polo and Riding Pony Society Stud Book registered the first 2 stallions and 6 mares in its Fell section.

But we still call them ’osses, even now.

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Defoe, (1724–1727) A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies

Cumberland Chronicle or Whitehaven Intelligencer, April and May 1777

Defoe, 1710, The True Account of the Last Distemper and Death of Tom Whigg (Part ii. p. 19) 

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Sue Millard's book web site, Jackdaw E Books, now does gift vouchers http://www.jackdawebooks.co.uk/vouchers.htm 

Fell ponies on the Fells

The farm trailer clangs and rattles behind the quad bike as it growls up the fellside, and we ride its movement with our knees bent, like skiers.

The late Chris Thompson’s hill farm, Drybarrows, is farmed by his son David and daughter in law Gail. Drybarrows is a typical Cumbrian holding, with a long winding track up through the fields to the house and buildings. Whereas on a lowland farm it would be very odd to have the house at one side of the fenced land, up here it’s right where it needs to be, looking down over the ‘in-bye’ from a position tight against the fell wall. The farmstead lies central to all the work because once you’ve gone beyond the buildings and through the fell gate you’re out onto the open common with the sheep and the ponies.

It’s a fine morning in early August, with wisps of cloud and a breeze thinning the sunshine on the tops. There is grass and sedge underfoot with sheep trods winding across black turfy soil and granite boulders poking up where they were left by the last Ice Age. A silver-grey tarn lying in a hollow reflects a darting dragonfly. Pinpricks of purple show where the heather is just coming into bloom. On the lower ground a neighbour is mowing-off encroaching bracken, and up here, when our wheels crush the fronds overhanging our path, we’re assailed by the same sour green smell.

Hills and valleys unfold steeply, grey, fawn and green, and the higher we climb the more stupendous the views appear, fading paler and paler into distance, from sage and blue to an ethereal lavender. From the steep slopes above Haweswater we can see Cross Fell, the Pennines, and Wild Boar Fell above Mallerstang. If we were to climb still higher we could spot Blackpool Tower, the sands of the Solway and the hills of southern Scotland.

“On a good day,” says David, “it’s the finest office in the world. On a bad day, the worst!”

We are up here looking for Fell ponies. We’ve found and photographed most of them lower down the fell, but there are another six who have gone off as a separate band. David isn’t worried, however. The ponies travel widely, finding their own shelter in bad weather, seeking fresh grass.

“They move about a lot,” says Gail. “You’ll see them in one place one day and the next they’ve moved on. They seem to have half a dozen favourite areas to graze and as the grass freshens up they visit them all in turn.”

We don’t see anything remotely like a pony, however, only a variety of bracken, sedge, grass, rock and heather, and one or two sheep.

Instead we go back down to the farm and sit chatting over tea and biscuits.

Chris Thompson had come over to my house for an interview while I was preparing “Hoofprints in Eden” in 2004. Here he is, explaining how his family began keeping Fell ponies:

“My father had them all his life; and his father before him. I think they started, there was a farm sale at Town End at Helton, Mr Hunter, and that would be very early on before the First World War. Before the Society was founded. He bought 3 ponies there and he farmed at Scales where Dougie Braithwaite is now, you see. And he just left them on their own ground where they’d been taken from and that’s where they originated from.

“My father gave me one when I left Askhamgate and went to Drybarrows. I only had the one from home and I bought one or two from Sarge [Noble], which were local ponies round about Drybarrows; and I bought a one off Alan Kirkpatrick. His ponies were in the Society but it was his daughter who had them. He had them at Hullock Howe. And I also bought a one – the breed would originate from Sarge – off Anthony Barker at Patterdale; he was huntsman, once over.

“There’s quite a range of Fell ponies and I always think there are two types; there’s a Fell pony, and a field pony! Fell pony will ‘do’ on the fell, whereas if I bought one that had never been on the fell – they haven’t the same instinct when they get to the fell, haven’t the field ponies. I know I sold  a Fell pony mare and she was in foal and I took the yearling back off her; the man said would I take the foal and I said, “Yes I will do,” and it wasn’t turned out until it was a yearling. And about Easter Sunday, some people who’d been walking on the fell came and said there was this pony;  and there just was the head there when we got there. It had gone to where there was some nice green grass round the bog and it had gone too far and couldn’t get out. We were lucky; it could have been buried and we’d have known nowt about it.

“They’re really knowledgeable. They wouldn’t take you into a soft place if you were riding a one. I have been out on the fell on a pony and the mist’s come in, and I haven’t had a clue which way I wanted to be. So I give it its head and it’s landed up at home. (But I’ve never had t’experience of riding another horse at fell to find it out whether it could take us home! Not when there’s been any mist!) I think I more or less gave it its head and let it find its own way. We might have gone quite a long way round by but I just couldn’t say that; it was mist down to home. I thought well, it’s a better knowledge of the fell than I have!

“They were quite good weather merchants. They knew when it was going to change and they came to the lower ground. I won’t say they come right home but you would see them heading down the fell and probably the next morning we’d three or four inches of snow. It’s instinct again isn’t it; but your older ponies quite often came and you’d probably got to go and look for the younger ones. Maybe if they’d missed the older ones coming away, they were to bring down.”

“I think you’ll go a long way before you’ll find anything that’s as hard and as tough and versatile as a Fell pony.”

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Interview extract (c) Sue Millard 2004 and published in 2005 as part of "Hoofprints in Eden" by Hayloft Publishing £17.00 plus P&P.

Sue Millard's other books almost all have an equestrian background and can be found on her web site, http://www.jackdawebooks.co.uk

Her poetry pamphlet "Ash Tree" is published this month by Prole Books.

What's in a Mane?

This is one for native pony fans, and particularly those who like the Fell pony in all its currently Very Hairy glory.

Recently a friend posted a pic of a Fell mare, Linnel Pearl, who was champion ridden Native pony in 1936 at Islington - with no spare hair showing. (Nice photography, by the way - square on to the mare, and one step to the rear, which is far more flattering and representative than the modern habit of taking The Head On shot to get rider and horse faces together, and thus making feet and body appear tiny by comparison.)

Notice also that she had a star and white markings on both hind heels.

Anyway, here's the 1936 photograph, of Linnel Pearl trimmed-up for the show:

People who viewed it were surprised at how "thoroughbred" the pony looked in the trimmed state, and thought she looked quite different from a modern Fell pony. So I Photoshopped in the feather and mane and tail she might have had before trimming:

What do you think of her now?

Bravo

I've used this word a lot over the past two weeks. Not in the "standing to applaud the operatic diva" way, but mentally, while I've been watching TV as the various members of Team GB (as we must call them) did their utmost to win Olympic medals.

Yesterday I watched Valegro and Charlotte Dujardin's beautiful, soft, rhythmic, forward Kur. Today when I came to drive my Fell mare Ruby, the haymaking tractors were whizzing to and fro, and I had a sudden urge to avoid the roads. A really good excuse to work in the field instead. Most of the summer (hollow laugh) it's been too wet to use it for schooling, but it was sound enough today, and Ruby does enjoy being out there on the grass. Her purpose is to reclaim it, she tells me, from Those Damned Sheep.

So we worked quietly away, with me asking her to remember to use her stiff hind leg and slow down, instead of hurtling round every right handed corner like a motorbike, with her head pointing left. Lots of little exercises, bends, circles and walk pirouettes - all interspersed with what she enjoys best, just storming along the side of the wood in extended trot!

When she got things right I told her, "Good girl," because, not being Italian, she doesn't understand, "Bravo."

In the middle of it I felt a little tickle in the brain that said, "Hang on, 'bravo' has another meaning as well, doesn't it?"

So, after the schooling, I came indoors and looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, which I often have open in my browser. As you do.

What do you mean, you don't? Doesn't every writer in England know that access to the full OED is free if you've got a library card? And doesn't every historical novelist use its Historical Thesaurus to check what phrases and words were available to characters in their chosen period?

While the Dictionary describes the interjection as a shout of praise, "Well done!" the Historical Thesaurus also defines a noun "bravo" thus: "A daring villain, a hired soldier or assassin; ‘a man who murders for hire’ (Johnson); a reckless desperado." The dates of recorded usage stretch from 1597 to 1876.

OED quotes Ben Jonson using "bravo" in "The Silent Woman," so I hunted down the full text of "The Silent Woman." And browsing through that I found another interesting snippet:

Epicene: And have you those excellent Receits, Madam, to keep
your selves from bearing of Children?

Haughty: O yes, Morose: How should we maintain our
Youth and Beauty else? Many Births of a Woman
make her Old...

Contraception being described on stage as "excellent" back in 1616? Wow!

I think I may have a new novel brewing. It has a title. And a hero and heroine.

Well, it's a start.