[Sca-cooks] Horseflesh in Early Period NW Europe?

[Terry Decker]

Gerald or Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) provides a description of the 
sacrifice and consumption of horse in Ulster, chapter 102 of his The History 
and Topography of Ireland.

St. Boniface's mission to the Germans (part of Charlemagne's move to control 
the various German tribes) espoused the papal prohibition of not eating 
horsemeat.  Hippophagy was prohibited to Christians apparently because it 
was tied to pagan sacrifice across a wide range of migratory peoples.  A 
dispensation was given to Iceland in 999.

You might wish to check out:  Bhawe, S., Die Yajus des Asvamedba; Versuch 
einer Rekontruktion dieses Abschnittes des Yajurveda auf Grund der 
Uberlieferung seiner funf Schulen, Bonner orientalistiche Studien 25, 
Stuttgart, 1939.  Bhawe ties hippophagy to to an ancient Indo-European 
fertility rite.

You might also try contacting Ken Jukes, who appears to writing a dsoctoral 
thesis entitled Hippophagy in AngloSaxon England. 
http://www.dur.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/?id=1225

Bear


----- Original Message ----- 

Salvete

I've been trying to figure this out for a while now, but I guess someone 
here might have done so already and found some source I'm not aware of. Do 
we have any evidence for horse beraingeaten in Early period Northwestern or 
northern europe? I know that afew bones from Hedeby show signs of slaughter, 
and there are horse sacrifices that deposit only the head and feet (the rest 
presumably consumed), but these are rare outside Slavic areas after the Iron 
Age. Most horse burials dpon't seem to show any such evidence.

Has anyone looked at the sagas or Anglo-Saxon literature from thatz point of 
view? Or know of a good study of scandinavian graves theway the RBO did the 
continental ones?

Any help appreciated

Giano