322 Correspondence.
Horses' Heads, Weathercocks, etc.
No one who has spent any length of time in Germany, especially the north-west, can fail to have remarked the carved horses' heads which ornament the gables of the peasants' houses. The practice IS not confined to Germany, nor is it universal there. (For the distribution see Petersen, Die Pferdekopfe an den Baiiertihliusern} where illustrations will be found, as also in Zeiis. der hist. GeselL, filr die Prov. Fosen, 1899, p. 319.) The limits of this custom correspond in some cases at least with dialectical boundaries, and thus suggest a tribal origin. This may have been the case in other countries ; in England they are not found outside Sussex, so far as I know, though I have seen it asserted that the practice also prevailed in Wales. Horses' heads are also found in Russia, the Tyrol, Rhaetia, and Spain.
Horses are not, however, the only animals whose heads, either singly or in pairs, are thus used. In the Tyrol we find also hares' and unicorns' heads- (Heyl, Volkssagen aiis Tirol, 156) ; in parts of Germany and Iceland, dragons' heads ; in Hesse, stags' heads. We also find, either carved or real, cows, rams, wolves, dogs, badgers, donkeys, foxes, pike, swans, cocks, and probably others (Russwurm, Eibofoike, 2ter Teil, 281, 283, 402 ; Grimm, D. M., pp. xxiii., 550, N. 190; Panzer, Beitrag ziir d. Myth., ii. 449; E. H. Meier, Germ. Myth., 99 £f. ; Rochholz, D. Glaiibe u. Branch, ii., 106 ; MS. notes, &c.). The Oscilla {Georg., ii., 389) are probably another example. In Beowulf (82, 704) we find mentioned the horns fixed to the gable,^ a practice of which we have an example at Hornchurch, where leaden horns are fixed on the east of the church (cf. Folklore J., i., 365). The intention may have been the same. The same custom seems to prevail in Borneo and in Celebes, but I do not know how it is there explained. Earth {Feisen u. E?itdecku7igen in N. u. C. Afrika, I., 376) mentions that eggs are put on the highest points of the huts to ensure the fertility of the family.
The hackles or little figures on the stacks are clearly another
' Injahrbiickerfur die Landesktmde der Herzogthi'uner Schleswig-Hohtetn- Lauenburg, vol. iii., i860.
- I suspect these are not real unicorns. At Parsan bei Vorsfelde, the
horses' heads have knobs on the forehead. {Globus, Ixvi.-iii.)
- My friend Dr. Gough calls my attention to the affixing of Grendel's arm
to the gable as a trophy. (^Beowulf, 834 ff. )
