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One of the more interesting British folk traditions (and one that is still actively taking place today) is that of carving horses and other figures into chalk hills. Remove the turf (and keep cleaning the exposed chalk few years) and the white outline stands out sharply against the grass. The oldest technique is to dig a trench and fill it with chalk - that gives the best - and longest lasting - results.
My icon is my local (ish) hill figure - the Cerne Abbas giant. He's 17th Centuary and quite a few hill figures date to that kind of period. The oldest is the Uffiington White horse which may be up to 3000 years old. (It's very difficult to date these things, so I don't know where that date comes from, but I'm guessing there's some evidence for it as most chalk horses are known to be more recent. Ah, optically stimulated luminescence dating - bet you wish you'd never asked - finding the last exposure to daylight of chalk from the bottom of the trench. The horse also appears on Iron Age coins.)
If you want a detailed look at lots of chalk figures, including military badges from during the war and ones constructed in the last decade, as well as the ones that are hundreds of years old then see this web site.
If you'd just like a quick view of the 10 best known chalk figures, then look here
And for those who just want a quick pretty picture, here's the Uffington chalk horse.
Incidentally, I'll give you good money that White Horse morris whom I mentioned a couple of days ago take their name from a chalk horse. They come from Wiltshire and Wiltshire has not one, but several chalk horses.
Folk traditions are a complex web - if they exist in isolation, they tend to wither and die. When traditions interweave with one another, they gain strength. Hobby horses and chalk horses have different origins, but where they meet up with yet another tradition - morris - they all gain from the association.
My icon is my local (ish) hill figure - the Cerne Abbas giant. He's 17th Centuary and quite a few hill figures date to that kind of period. The oldest is the Uffiington White horse which may be up to 3000 years old. (It's very difficult to date these things, so I don't know where that date comes from, but I'm guessing there's some evidence for it as most chalk horses are known to be more recent. Ah, optically stimulated luminescence dating - bet you wish you'd never asked - finding the last exposure to daylight of chalk from the bottom of the trench. The horse also appears on Iron Age coins.)
If you want a detailed look at lots of chalk figures, including military badges from during the war and ones constructed in the last decade, as well as the ones that are hundreds of years old then see this web site.
If you'd just like a quick view of the 10 best known chalk figures, then look here
And for those who just want a quick pretty picture, here's the Uffington chalk horse.
Incidentally, I'll give you good money that White Horse morris whom I mentioned a couple of days ago take their name from a chalk horse. They come from Wiltshire and Wiltshire has not one, but several chalk horses.
Folk traditions are a complex web - if they exist in isolation, they tend to wither and die. When traditions interweave with one another, they gain strength. Hobby horses and chalk horses have different origins, but where they meet up with yet another tradition - morris - they all gain from the association.
