Ask Me About Horses

I'm not sure they're freezing to death as much as quite ready to find shelter. They have adequate clothes for the weather. They are quite fearful of wondering around a dangerous mountain slope in low visibility.

I do like your solution. Simple and elegant. Thanks!

Works. Good deal.

I like this a lot as well. I had her injuring her ankle in a previous draft and don't want to change it. She can injure it in the fall, and the chasm can be deep enough that she has no hope of climbing out. Just have to figure out how her friends find her.

Thanks again. That was a great help!

 

One more quick one:

I described a huge overhang prior to the cave's entrance, and have the protagonist ask if the horses would be all right there. Here's the answer:

Does any part of this bother you?

 

I have a question more about what to call certain horses. For instance, I'm currently reading George R.R. Martin, so I'll use his writing as an example... he uses "garron" a lot to refer to the horses ridden by warriors in battle. I don't know if this is a general term that anybody can use, or if Martin created it himself. I've also seen other fantasy authors use generic names for horses, such as "destrier" (Robert Jordan, if I remember correctly). Again, I don't know which ones are commonly used, and which ones are made up by the author.

I was wondering if anybody knew (or could easily compile a list, if there is one) of what certain types of horses are called (not necessarily the breed) by size, strength, speed, male/female, etc. I would assume a "garron" is a large, strong male horse that can easily carry the weight of a man in full armor, and can probably run fairly quickly.

My apologies if this has been asked already, but I didn't see any answers to this as I read through the thread. Thanks!!

 

The more I write, the more I realize how little I know about horses. You'd think that I would've picked more up from all those fantasy novels I read. I can't express to y'all how helpful this thread is.

My next question:

Timmy and his family have gone camping in a snowstorm. He and his faithful horse, Lassie, go looking for firewood. Oh no! Timmy falls into a well. What does Lassie do?

A. Return to where the other horses are.
B. Stay by the well.
C. Wander off.

BTW, Lassie belongs to a militia and is well trained. I'm not exactly sure what kind of training, but there was definitely a lot of it going on.

Thanks again.

 

Sorry, yet another one:

My intrepid heroes are on the side of a mountain in a severe snowstorm. I'm assuming that it's unsafe to ride in those conditions and that walking the horses is a good idea. Does that track?

Also, when they go to rescue Timmy from the question above, they leave the horses behind. Does this make sense? If not, I need it to make sense. Any ideas?

Thanks again again.

 

I'm starting to regret even including horses in my story. In epic fantasy, though, it's hard to get by without them.

I asked a similar question and got great answers earlier, but I want to describe the scene a little better.

I need to know how to get the horses to go into a dark tunnel. It's too low to ride them. Do you pull the reins? Slap them? Will them resist? How? Kick? What?

 

I believe a normal horse would graze or seek out herd mates depending on how independant it is.

Anytime you are uncertain about footing, walking a horse is best. Deep snow covering rough terrain sounds like a good time to walk them.

Timmy in a well, if they don't have someone strong enough to pull him up, a horse could help. Otherwise horses are good staying safe, with or without being near the family.

Don't know about the dark tunnel. I have rode a horse into a giant cave, 15 horses across took up only half of the cave width and it wasn't dark.

 

great list of horse sounds, each one shows what the horse is communicating.

 

Interesting post Ankari, i would think if the horse had been inflicted real amount of pain while dying it would be squealing of sorts... i know not very pretty

 

I did a quick look, didn't find anything.
Sudden severe pain would be a shriek, not much different then a woman's scream. I would guess.
Dying would a low nervous blow.

 

If I read it right, the horse is suddenly stuck immobile, it would be a shriek of panic. (high pitched with terror)
Then the pain of the attack; scream of pain, less frantic, but still high pitched.
dying would be a low depressed sound similar to this:"An expectant nicker with a second nicker for good measure." (on the horse sounds link)

 

New question:

I show my heroes riding in wet/rainy/muddy conditions with the bad guys right on their tale. How dangerous is this? Should I show one of the bad guys going down? How would this happen?

Thanks.

 

well the horses slow down to a walk and place their feet very gingerly, so you would have a group of horses looking at the ground ignoring their riders mostly for their own safety
they would not risk injury to themselves, so the question is how much on their tails?
the other thing is horses do not like being in driving rain and turn their bums into the rain, so again you will have a group of people standing around with the rain at their backs
Riding with a horse slipping underneath you is no joke either, so you would be best advised to get off and run with the horse

 

Does this apply to muddy, but not rainy, conditions as well?

I'm sure I've seen movies with horses galloping through mud. You seem to imply that it wouldn't happen.