The Horse in Magic and Myth
By M. Oldfield Howey
Dover Publishing (2002)
Reviewed by Pattie Lawler
Don’t read this book.
I’m not kidding. It was SO bad that I actually stopped reading it *before* the chapter on the Uffington Horse (...you know it’s bad when.) Billed by Dover Pub. as ‘new,’ it’s actually a reprinting of a 1923 Englishman’s rambling about horses and where they fit into his view on nature spirits.
Sounds not bad right? It even started with one of the better English horse stories, all about the knight at Wandlebury Camp (which you can read more about in this issue) but from there it was only a short step into eyewitness accounts from a few years ago (which is what sent me to the front of the book for the publishing date) about headless horse-drawn hearses. Sadly, Dover has tried to breathe new life into a fossil which was better left in a Victorian curiosity case. So while you’re avoiding the other books on this list, ignore this one, too.
