this is amazing ahhh, wow I love the variation of the horses in Beleriand and how little things that we don’t think of are BIG PROBLEMS!!!! i love this <3

Tweaking it and seeing if maybe expanding on the end bit to post it as a proper fic to AO3. But yes. What can be more me but the elaborate overthinking of what specific animal breeds by population and need one would find in the First Age?

I know the quote specifically says more strength and vigor thanks to living in Valinor and long swords as the reason behind the victory of the Battle-under-the-Stars, but the quote about the Noldor’s superior horses and the general background framework of late antiquity/medieval period for Arda – it is the most natural and obvious conclusion to think -Noldor war strength = greater heavy cavalry. Their preference for stone castles and Tolkien’s, well, Anglo-Saxon love, that the Noldor are the Normans invading England with their better cavalry at Hastings…again I thought this was blindingly obvious. Then to think- okay the ONLY way horses from Valinor get to Beleriand is Fëanorians loading them onto Swanships. And Maglor’s horse troops support this. But then you have Fingolfin and Fingon just as if not more strongly associated with horses – aha those horses were obviously part of a reconciliation gift, probably passed over along with the Noldor High Kingship. (Then thinking hey wait I have Fingon as an equestrian in Valinor -sister and father too that this isn’t a post-Beleriand development – they probably certainly brought their horses with them on the initial Flight from Tirion. Then the next obvious step- Fëanor was stealing everyone’s horses when he also took the ships. That is exactly in-character for him. And it is almost exactly the same act as taking the Swanships and denying this transportation to the majority of the Noldor under his half-brothers/nephews. And ties into the reason why horse theft was considered one of the worst crimes in Iron Age up through medieval and post-medieval and even American Wild West – to murder someone is bad. To strand someone without transportation or livelihood or what was needed to help grow food and survive is worse.)

So then it’s the question of what are the native Beleriand horses- that yes the Sindar did have domesticated horses- this would be a pre-Great Journey development. How rare it was I debated (Sunless world and all that)- but Morogth’s invasion would limit the numbers regardless. So then it was: what breeds? The tarpan as the original European wild horse was where I started, and from cave paintings the common coat colors were bay and black and leopard spotting- though the mousey grullo and light dun are what you see on ‘primitive’ feral or wild horses today. Dorsal eel stripes and zebra-like leg markings. Still- black and bays for forest horses -aha of course that would also be true for Beleriand! Exmoor and Sorraia ponies for most of the looks- Beleriand has a relatively cold climate and it’s either forests, highlands, or steppe. As said, the Marshes of Nevrast around Linaewen have Camargue horses because white horses running across the shallow water is classic romantic imagery and very apropos to Tolkien. The leopard spotting was a classic and popular coat pattern of medieval and Baroque horses and is an ancient look even if nowadays mostly associated with American Appaloosa (Oh wait, Sindar elves having something in common with Native Americans, at least in the Romantic imagery? It’s not like Tolkien never suggested that sarcasm).

Valinorean horses, aside from the ‘taller, more special and magically infused blah blah’, the climate was more equatorial and the constant light says to me they would have been more like a hot-blooded desert breed with light thin skin. Not full on Arabians, but idk, Akhal-Teke. Then again, these ‘Oriental-type’ horses are relatively short.

And open fields and stone castle Noldor need fields for growing crops, which means plough animals. Horses were not the most common plough animal until after the medieval period, but I was only overthinking horses in Beleriand today, not cattle.

Shoeing horses is definitely a Noldor invention.