Unbridled horses and Knights errants

GAVINA CHERCHI
Abstract
Unbridled horses and Knights errant
Written and iconographical sources testify that for centuries horsemanship greatly relied on the use of mouthpieces (bits, bridles, reins) by which the rider could master, control and guide his steed; the magical chalinòs Athena gave to Bellerophon to allow him to ride Pegasus, was the mythical paradigm of the control exerted by the willpower of the (rational) rider upon the (irrational) horse.

Such conventional hierarchy appears to be in some circumstances reversed: the knights errant of the chivalric literature and the heroes of the folktales sometimes let their steeds choose the way. Sir Gauwain reaches the Castle of the Graal by letting the reins loose on the neck of his horse , and goes “si com li chevaus li mena”, where the horse wanted to go…

So did with his “little shaggy horse” the Irish Conn-Eda, who “suffered the reins to fall loose upon the neck of the horse according as he had been instructed, so that the animal took whatever road he chose”.
Don Quijote likewise “ pursued his way without following any other road than that which his horse was pleased to choose, believing that to be the most correct way of meeting with knightly adventures”; and when “ the road branched into four, there came into his fancy the cross-ways he had read of, where the Knights Errant used to ponder which of the roads they should take. And that he might imitate them, he let slip the reins on Rozinante’s neck, submitting his will to that of his steed… ”.
The adventures of such knights errant are a Bildungsroman where horses are companions and guides, both in this and in the Other world: unhindered by the reins they resume their ancient role of prophetic and psychopompoi animals.