Ghyll:Horses

Well, dash it all, what can you say about horses that every child doesn't already know, with perhaps the exceptions of those who have spent their whole lives in the slums of Iganefta-on-the-Sea, where the streets are just so narrow that horses can't slip their way between the overgrown buildings? I mean, come on, really now, splak it all!

Kmuppens' Taxonomy of course is no help at all, I mean, it just says "The well-known quadruped", as if we all should know what a horse is, as indeed we should, I mean, see paragraph one. But I will do my poor best to recite what is known about horses. At least I'm not just saying "I know two things about the horse / And one of them is rather coarse."

They're big. We ride on them. They normally wear horseshoes to protect their feet, just as we wear shoes to protect ours (of course Boing is an exception, but he's not real). When the horseshoes wear out they get replaced. They're about as smart as we are. They can't talk out loud, but they understand what we say perfectly (except when they pretend not to) and communicate with us using Horse Code, a system of stomps, wriggles, neighing, and ear twitches. Flies called horseflies, not related to burnflies, parasitize them, unless we smear them (the horses, not the flies) with fly-repelling ointment. We keep their carapaces waxed. Their splak is large and rather squarish (rather surprising, since they have round fundaments) and due to its shape is commonly called a "horse-apple". They are used in combat.

Is that enough, or am I going to be subjected to the Mighty Stomp?

Citations: Boing, Horse Code, Kmuppens' Taxonomy.

--John Cowan 22:39, 8 Jul 2005 (EDT)