Horses
The Shin'a'in are famous for their relationship to their horses, whom they often refer to as dester'edre (Wind-born Siblings), or ever-younger clanschildren(Jel'sutho'edrin).
The Shin'a'in horses are famous for their quality, especially the warsteeds. A warsteed off the Plains is always female: the Shin'a'in prefer the mares for their intelligence. No Shin'a'in warsteed is ever permitted to belong to a non-Shin'a'in, and they are never sold. Battlemares, as they are known, are distinguished as being ugly, as they are bred for their brains, agility and muscle rather than for looks. In appearance they are somewhat coarse, with large, broad foreheads, dusty gray coats and muscular quarters (the hindquarters often somewhat higher than the forequarters). They are trained to allow only their riders to handle or ride them, and will seriously injure or (more often) kill anybody unauthorized who comes close to them.
The studs never leave the plains, and the only Shin'a'in horses sold to outsiders are their saddle-beasts and their culls, which are of entirely different breeding stock to the warsteeds (though highly superior to non-Shin'a'in horses).
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Famous quotes containing the word horses:
“Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.”
—Edwin Muir (1887–1959)
“Since then—’tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses Heads
Were toward Eternity—”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“Away with the cant of “Measures, not men!”Mthe idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.”
—George Canning (1770–1827)