An evocation of The Vale Of The White Horse.
The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylised prehistoric hill figure, 374 feet (110 m) long, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill in Uffington, Oxfordshire.
The figure has been shown to date back some 3,000 years, to the Bronze Age, by means of optically stimulated luminescence dating carried out following archaeological investigations in 1994.
These studies produced three dates ranging between 1400 and 600 BC. Iron Age coins that bear a representation of the Uffington White Horse have been found, supporting the early dating of this artefact.
Numerous other prominent prehistoric sites are located nearby, notably Wayland’s Smithy, a long barrow less than two kilometres to the west.
Uffington is by far the oldest of the white horse figures in Britain, and is of an entirely different design to the others.
It has long been debated whether the chalk figure was intended to represent a horse or some other animal.
However, it has been called a horse since the eleventh century at least.
An Abingdon cartulary, written by monks on vellum, between 1072 and 1084, refers to “mons albi equi” at Uffington (“the White Horse Hill”).
The horse is thought to represent a tribal symbol perhaps connected with the builders of Uffington Castle.
Written for the Dragonfly Festival in Sweden, curated by SoundFjord.
SoundFjord
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