When I watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes I was disturbed for an unlikely reason. It wasn’t the dystopian aspect of a world where humans were no longer top of the food chain. The resonant image for me was when the apes were riding horses.
I immediately checked myself. Why am I slightly repelled by the spectacle of apes riding horses? I mean, humans ride horses and we’re not much different from apes.
Yet humans sort of had to ride horses. If we hadn’t used horses at certain points in our history, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Jared Diamond writes about this in his book Guns, Germs and Steel, about how human evolution has favoured certain geographical groups over others.
Kodomo no kuni (“Children’s Land”), 1922–30 monkeys riding horse1950s LAWSON WOOD CHILDRENS BOOK HB DEAN UK frontispiece
THE DOMESTICATION OF WILD HORSES
First he points out that domestic animals including horses didn’t do well in Africa because of climate and disease carried by tsetse flies. For that reason, the horse only became established as far south as the equator, and only on the Western side of the African continent until A.D. 1-200, where they transformed warfare. Yet horses had long since become established in other parts of the world. In Egypt they also transformed warfare, starting around 1800 B.C. As soon as horses make their way into an area, humans use them to fight wars with.
Every domesticated animal has a wild ancestor. The wild ancestor of the horse, the wild horse of southern Russia, is now extinct, though a different subspecies survived in the wild to modern times in Mongolia. (This Mongolian horse is now rare and protected and survives in a protected National Park. But it is no longer ‘wild’.) Sheep, goats and pigs were the first wild animals to be domesticated. The most recent example of domestication is the camel.
Diamond draws a clear distinction between animals which can be tamed (e.g. elephants) versus animals which can be domesticated. ‘Tamed’ simply means to become less dangerous to humans, whereas to be domesticated, a wild animal is ‘selectively bred in captivity and thereby modified from its wild ancestors, for use by humans who control the animal’s breeding and food supply’. Some animals can be domesticated and others cannot. For instance, no one has ever domesticated a zebra. You simply cannot put a saddle on a zebra, and you can be sure people have tried. We know that zebras tend to bite you and not loosen their bite. But horses don’t do that. I know from reading Lonesome Dove that horses can bite you badly in the shoulder and also bite off your toes, but horses don’t keep hold of your flesh like zebras do. Horses can therefore be broken in.
Dorothy P Lathrop from the book The Three Mulla-Mulgars. “He jumped, he reared, he kicked, he plunged, he wriggled, he whinnied.”Marie-Madeleine FRANC-NOHAIN [1878-1942] Alphabet In Pictures 1933Hilary Knight’s artwork appeared on the November 1979 issue of CRICKET
Why can you put a saddle on a horse and not on a zebra (or on elk or eland)? Three factors:
Horses aren’t as skittish and nervous. You can keep them in captivity.
They are herd animals who don’t mind company
Horses first developed a firm social hierarchy between themselves. Humans utilised this natural hierarchy and position themselves at the top. (Normally it’d be the top ranking female horse.)
Domesticated horses have therefore been vital to humans, first in warfare, next in agricultural and in transportation across long distances.
Dragons are also fun to ride.
Fairytale book published in 1982 by Vladimir Kovarik, illustrated by Daniela Benesova (27 september 1929, Tsjechië)Virginia Frances Sterrett (1900-1931 USA)The Ship That Sailed To Mars 1923, William M TimlinWilliam Andrew Pogány (1882-1955), Metropolitan Magazine Aug. 1916Feodor Rojankovsky (Frog Went A-Courtin’, written by John Langstaff, 1955) ‘Pinocchio in the Moon’ Illustration by Corrado Sarri, 1924Russian folk tales, old story. Library of World Literature for Children. Illustrator I. ArkhipovJean-Babtiste Monge Leonard Leslie Brooke (English, 1862-1940). If we could saddle a kangaroo that would be fun. The way they jump is amazing. Pretty sure kangaroos wouldn’t welcome the development, though.Molly Brett (1902–1990).Boris Dolgov, ‘Weird Tales’, 1954Le belle historie que voila by André Hellé. Published c1900, this book contains 6 stories with names such as The Blue Snail or Lost ParadiseLouise Abbéma,. (French, 1858-1927), La JaponaiseLouis Rhead (1857-1926) Ariel The Story of the Weathercock by Evelyn Sharpe 1907 illustrated by Charles RobinsonThe Story of the Weathercock by Evelyn Sharpe 1907 illustrated by Charles Robinson
RIDING CREATURES THAT FLY
Sivka-Burka, Russian Folk Tale Illustrator Igor Yershov, 1960sDugald Stewart Walker illustrator ‘Rainbow gold; poems old and new selected for boys and girls’ 1922Franz Jüttner (1865-1925) 1905 illustration Die Galoppierende (The Galloping) for the German satirical magazine ’Lustige Blätter’
Since we are used to seeing humans riding horses, it’s no great stretch of the imagination to witness them riding flying horses (pegasuses). Though when a human rides a bird, the human has probably been through some sort of shrinking process. Flight is one of the main wish fulfilment fantasies, especially in children’s literature. The experience of riding a horse is very much like flying, and we use the word ‘fly’ to describe rapid, smooth movement, even across ground.
Eleanor Vere Gordon Boyle, Thumbelina , 1872Farmer Weatherbeard 1886 Theodor KittelsenHutchings, 1968“Fast Flew the Black Winged Horse” From the Book “The Garden Behind the Moon. A Real Story of the Moon-Angel” (1895) Written and illustrated by Howard Pyle pegasusThe Thief of Bagdad (1924) – film poster, Art by Anton Grot pegasusEdward Robert Hughes – Dream Idyll (A Valkyrie)by Moebius (Jean Giraud) for a campaign of the fashion house, HermèsDrawing of Michele Steurnal, bellerophon, Pegasus and the chimera, crater in red figures, 1814Early-twentieth century illustrations by Artuš Scheiner (1863 – 1938)By Harold Gaze (1884-1963)–Ill. f. Coppertop 1924Hannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard (1914 – 1964)Charles Folkard (1878 – 1963). A 1915 illustration for Lucy M. Garnett’s Ottoman Wonder Tales.An illustration by Charles Folkard from ‘Pip and Squeak Annual 1929’from Richard Doyle’s Fairyland 1870Harry Rountree, The Doings of Furrymouse, 1919.
WHERE RIDING GETS WEIRD
The illustration below is clearly a play on the English word ‘to ride piggyback’. The phrase refers to anything riding on the back of something else, metaphorically or literally.
L. Leslie Brooke (1862–1940)- “This Little Pig cried ‘Wee, wee, wee! I can’t find my way home!’” from “Ring O’ Roses, A Nursery Rhyme Picture Book,” Frederick Warne & Company, Ltd., 1922
The history of this word has nothing to do with pigs:
Piggyback is a corruption of pickaback, which is likely a folk etymology alteration of pick pack (1560s), which perhaps is from pick, a dialectal variant of the verb pitch.
This slightly uncomfortable Frank Beard illustration comes out of America. “What may happen when little boys play leap frog too much.”
RIDING FISH AND OTHER WATER CREATURES
It is surprisingly easy to find old illustrations of humans and other animals riding fish and fish-people.
Paulina Garwatowska – The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen old woman riding a fishChinese Firecracker box illustration. A man has gone fishing and ends up riding the fish.The Great Sea Horse 1909 by Isabel AndersonAlan Aldridge illustration 1973 for The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s FeastMermaid Riding a Sea Serpent (Hans Christiansen, 1897, a magazine cover)The Oyster Loaf menu cover, 1940s, Andrew Loomis (1892-1959) Marina Marcolin
The flippers on the horse in the illustration below are a particularly resonant detail.
Erich Shutz, Austrian (1886-1937) 1930 ridingKodomo no kuni (“Children’s Land”), 1922–30Kodomo no kuni (“Children’s Land”), 1922–30 monkey riding birdBILDERBUCH II SPORT UND SPIEL (1906) K.F.E. von FreyholdAttilio, 1978 rabbit riding dogIkke kjørende og ikke ridende, 1907DER ROTE VOGEL FELIX (1975) Marie SarrazWilly PoganyRiding butterfliesDIE GEBURTSTAGREISE (1976), Monika BeisnerHonor Charlotte Appleton, 1929Benvenuti – The Snow Queen and Other Tales
Looking at art as a corpus, it seems modern audiences no longer look at a fish and imagine riding it, like, at all. Maybe sometimes, in something absurdist. But the illustrations below make me think that in pre-aeroplane times, people were just as likely to imagine fish as birds when conceiving of a flight contraption.
THE ‘SIDE SADDLE’ VERSION OF RIDING ANIMALS
Sidesaddle riding is a form of equestrianism that uses a type of saddle which allows a rider (usually female) to sit aside rather than astride an equine. Sitting aside dates back to antiquity and developed in European countries in the Middle Ages as a way for women in skirts to ride a horse in a modest fashion while also wearing fine clothing. It has retained a specialty niche even in the modern world.
Wikipedia
The sidesaddle tradition goes way back and can be seen on Greek vases. It exists because the rubbish concept of virginity exists, in which the hymen must be preserved so men can marry their daughters off well. As they clearly knew even then, a wide variety of normal activities can stretch the hymen (hymens do not break), but they did not then come to the conclusion that the hymen and penetrative sex have little to do with each other. The natural conclusion was that women’s movements must be further restricted.
None of this comes into children’s picture books, of course. Unless we do a count up of girls with their legs closed versus boys with their legs astride; girls being carried to safey, boys more active in their own travel and rescue.
The Wizard Of Oz- 1944 flying monkeys, illustration by Evelyn CopelmanOne of Harry Clarke’s illustrations for Fairy Tales (1916) by Hans Christen AndersenCharles James Folkard (6 April 1878 – 26 February 1963)This illustration by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite is interesting because normally witches are depicted sitting astride their broom, and this looks mighty uncomfortable indeed. But if witches have the power to make broomsticks fly, why wouldn’t they also have the ability to stand on them like this?Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (1888 – 1960) 1925. This is an illustration called Witch’s Sister On Her Black Bat for The Enchanted Forest, written by her husband Grenbry Outhwaite.Helen Jacobs (1888-1970), The night flight American illustrator Virginia Frances Sterrett died tragically young of TB at the age of 30.The Green Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang with illustrations by H. J. Ford, 1906.Illustration for the French magazine ′La Vie Parisienne′ by Chéri Hérouard (1881-1961) riding a dragonHannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard (1914 – 1964)
THE RELATED TROPE OF THE RIDING BITCH
This trope describes the situation in which a female character rides on a bike (motorised or otherwise) while a man steers.
Growing up in the 80s, my bike was different from my brothers’ bikes. My top bar was heavily angled. When I asked why, my father told me it was so I could get onto the bike wearing a skirt, which seems ridiculous even for the 80s, except I was required to wear full school uniform to school all through the 90s, so I mostly was trying to pull down my summer tunic as the wind caught it, and constantly trying to keep my winter kilt out from the back wheel. (I didn’t succeed.) Honestly, the nuisance of a horizontal top bar would’ve been the least of my concerns.
Inverse examples of the riding bitch in children’s stories are rare. However, you will occasionally find them, in which case the female character is coded deliberately as a ‘take charge’ sort of girl.
Are women’s bikes still built differently? Yes, but in a way that accommodates for average differences in build rather than from some outdated idea that women are still mostly riding skirts on bikes, and are incapable of mounting bicycles featuring horizontal top bars.
Honestly, if women are athletically capable enough to ride a male top bar like pig Josephine below, we have always been sufficiently capable of riding a bike as it was meant to be ridden — using an actual damn seat.
There’s a good reason why female characters rarely give male characters rides like this. If you’ve ever tried it you’ll know that it’s very difficult and requires a substantial differential in size and strength. Girls are simply smaller.
Pettson and FindusBILDERBUCH II SPORT UND SPIEL (1906) K.F.E. von FreyholdColour plates from A Book of Old Ballads illustrations by H.M. Brock, Hutchinson & Co. 1934, “Thomas the Rhymer” and his riding bitch.TIFF-HUTÉ (1948) Henry Le Monnier riding bitch
The illustration below disturbs me, as it is meant to. We see acts of violence meted out to people of all genders, of course, but there’s something utterly vulnerable about the violence meted out in this one, in which the riding bitch trope intersects with male violence against a woman. The torture (rather than the finality) of the event is given primacy. The image is even more disturbing if you’ve studied the history of the witch craze.
Images of tortured Jesus are also disturbing, though perhaps rendered less so because of the ubiquity of Jesus on the cross. We rarely see Jesus from this angle. A near ‘upskirt’ angle is specific to femme characters. Notice how even on her way to hell, this tortured witch does not ride astride a horse. She’s still some dude’s riding bitch.
DE NACHTMANNETJES (1946) Eetie van Rees ridingEarly-twentieth century illustrations by Artuš Scheiner (1863 – 1938) riding horse underwater