The White Horse at Uffington is an icon of the English landscape -
a sleek, almost abstract figure 120 yards long which was carved
into the green turf of the spectacular chalk scarp of the North
Wessex Downs in the early first millennium bc. For centuries
antiquarians, travellers and local people speculated about the age
of the Horse, who created it and why. Was it a memorial to King
Alfred the Great's victory over the heathen Danes, an emblem of the
first Anglo-Saxon settlers or a prehistoric banner, announcing the
territory of a British tribe? Or was the Horse an actor in an
elaborate prehistoric ritual, drawing the sun across the sky? The
rich history of this ancient figure and its surroundings can help
us understand how people have created and lived in the Downland
landscape, which has inspired artists, poets and writers including
Eric Ravilious, John Betjeman and J.R.R. Tolkien. The White Horse
itself is most remarkable because it is still here. People have
cared for it and curated it for centuries, even millennia. In that
time the meaning of the Horse has changed, yet it has remained a
symbol of continuity and is a myth for modern times.
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