Horse

 

The horse is an important animal for both riding and pulling – and because of its tame temper – they are considered as great friends to humans. In farming, they used to be used, and still are, for pulling a plough and turning a treadmill, a contraption used for watering the crops.

The horse is considered a creature of great strength, because of its large body, big head and long limbs. Its hair is thick and usually short but along the back of its head, neck and tail it is long. The horse moves his ears to pick up the sounds and the position of its ears signals its mood.

RELIGION AND TRADITION

In the olden times, the horse was thought to have a special connection to the underworld, the world of the dead. The horse is a constant attribute of a hero.

ART

The horse in popular wisdom and artistic creations is a symbol of hard life and toil. In his poem Dolap (The Treadmill)Milan Rakić identifies a life of a horse with the moments of human discouragement, lack of vigour and a feeling of hopelessness:

Vranče, ti si bio pun snage i volje, / i dolap si stari okretao živo,

Tešila te nada da će biti bolje, / mlad i snažan ti si slatke snove sniv’o.

HISTORY

Domesticated horses as working animals have had a significant role in the history of humankind. It is aupposed that the horse was domesticated in the third millennium B.C., soon after the donkey.

Overall mechanisation in farming and the motoring traffic pushed out horses and donkeys. Today, in the developed countries, they are used for sports and entertainment. In some parts of the world their meat is used for human consumption.