Editing Uffington White Horse (section)

==Influence and cultural references==
The horse was a direct influence on much later hill figures of white horses,<ref name="hows.org.uk"/> including [[Kilburn White Horse]] (1858) in [[Yorkshire]],<ref>{{cite book |last = Marples |first = Morris |orig-year = 1949 |year = 1981 |title = White Horses and Other Hill Figures |publisher = Alan Sutton Publishing Limited |location = Gloucester |isbn = 0-904387-59-3}}</ref> [[Folkestone White Horse]] (2003) at the [[Channel Tunnel]] terminal near [[Kent]],<ref>{{cite web |title=More details |series=The White Horse |website=whitehorsefolkestone.co.uk |url=http://www.whitehorsefolkestone.co.uk/moredetails.html |access-date=10 October 2015}}</ref> and a white horse cut from heather that existed from 1981 until the mid-1990s in [[Mossley]], [[Greater Manchester]].<ref>{{cite news |title=The nag under the heather |date=c. 1999 |newspaper=Tameside Reporter |url=https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/a49e49bf-d740-49cf-8dc3-a0c1966e9171_l.jpg |access-date=5 July 2017}}</ref> The first [[Westbury White Horse]], which faced left, is believed to have been inspired by the Uffington horse.<ref name="hows.org.uk"/> The Uffington White Horse has inspired lookalike hill figures, including one facing left in [[Ciudad Juárez]], [[Mexico]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Wiltshire white horses |website=wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk |url=http://www.wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk/foreign.html |access-date=10 October 2015}}</ref> Direct replicas of the Uffington horse can be found at [[Cockington Green Gardens]] in [[Australia]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Cockington Green Gardens |website=weekendnotes.com |url=https://www.weekendnotes.com/cockington-green-gardens/26502/}}</ref> and [[Hogansville]], [[Georgia (U.S. State)|Georgia]], U.S.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tunis Horses |website=hows.org.uk |url=http://www.hows.org.uk/personal/hillfigs/foreign/hillf%5Cgeorgia.htm |url-status=dead |access-date=10 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924031443/http://www.hows.org.uk/personal/hillfigs/foreign/hillf%5Cgeorgia.htm |archive-date=24 September 2015}}</ref> Uffington White Horse has inspired two sculptures in [[Wiltshire]], namely Julie Livsey's ''White Horse Pacified'' (1987) in nearby [[Swindon]],<ref>{{cite web |title=White Horse pacified |series=West Swindon sculpture walk, Part&nbsp;3 |website=swindonadvertiser.co.uk |date=23 July 2013 |url=http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/yoursay/blogs/born_again_swindonian/10566423.print/ |access-date=10 October 2015}}</ref><!-- NOTE: The link says it was inspired by the horses surrounding Swindon, and the closest of all the horses to Swindon is Uffington --> a town which was also once considered for a white horse,<ref>{{cite web |title=Designs that were never made |series=Hill figures |website=hows.org.uk |url=http://www.hows.org.uk/personal/hillfigs/arch/designs.htm |access-date=10 October 2015}}</ref> and Charlotte Moreton's ''White Horse'' (2010) in Solstice Park, [[Amesbury]].<ref>{{cite news |title=A white horse for Solstice Park |newspaper=Western Daily Press |url=http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/White-Horse-Solstice-Park/story-11759798-detail/story.html |access-date=10 October 2015}}{{Dead link|date=August 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

The White Horse is used as a symbol by diverse organisations (mostly with Oxfordshire or Berkshire connections) and appears in numerous works of literature, visual art and music.<ref name="pollard">{{cite journal |first=J. |last=Pollard |year=2017 |title=The Uffington White Horse geoglyph as sun-horse |journal=Antiquity |volume=91 |issue=326 |pages=406–420 |doi=10.15184/aqy.2016.269 |doi-access=free |quote=A widely consumed image within popular culture ... the white horse features on the album covers of XTC and Nirvana&nbsp;... }}</ref>

===As an emblem===
The White Horse is the emblem of the [[Vale of White Horse District Council]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Vale of White Horse District Council |publisher=VOWHDC |url=http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/ |access-date=14 June 2017}}</ref> the [[Berkshire Yeomanry]]<ref name=DoyleFoster2012>{{cite book |first1=Peter |last1=Doyle |first2=Chris |last2=Foster |date=20 July 2012 |title=British Army Cap Badges of the Second World War |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-0-7478-1110-7 |page=56 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eQjDCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA56}}</ref> (an Army Reserve unit based in [[Windsor, Berkshire|Windsor]]), and educational establishments including [[Faringdon Community College]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Faringdon Community College |url=http://www.fcc.oxon.sch.uk/ |access-date=14 June 2017 |archive-date=2 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170102040227/http://www.fcc.oxon.sch.uk/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[The Ridgeway School and Sixth Form College]]<ref>{{cite web |title=The Ridgeway School and Sixth Form College |url=https://www.ridgewayschool.com/ |access-date=1 September 2021 |archive-date=13 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210913084049/https://www.ridgewayschool.com/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> in Wroughton, Wiltshire, and The Ridgeway Primary School in [[Whitley, Berkshire]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Ridgeway Primary School |url=http://www.theridgewayprimary.net |access-date=14 June 2017}}</ref>

===Literature===
[[Thomas Hughes]], the author of ''[[Tom Brown's Schooldays]]'', who was born in the nearby village of Uffington,<ref>{{cite web |title=Uffington and ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'' |publisher=Tom Brown's School Museum |url=http://www.museum.uffington.net/what-you-can-see/?target=uffington-and-tom-browns-schooldays |access-date=14 June 2017 |archive-date=6 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306025333/http://www.museum.uffington.net/what-you-can-see/?target=uffington-and-tom-browns-schooldays |url-status=dead }}</ref> wrote a book called ''The Scouring of the White Horse''. Published in 1859, and described as "a combined travel book and record of regional history in the guise of a novel, sort of",<ref name=landow/> it recounts the traditional festivities surrounding the periodic renovation of the White Horse.<ref>{{cite book |first=Thomas |last=Hughes |year=1859 |title=The Scouring of the White Horse |quote=...&nbsp;or, the long vacation ramble of a London clerk |publisher=Ticknor and Fields |place=Boston, MA |url=https://archive.org/details/scouringwhiteho00doylgoog}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=David Nash |last=Ford |year=2003 |series=The Uffington White Horse, Part&nbsp;3 |title=Scouring and Pastimes |publisher=Royal Berkshire History |url=http://www.berkshirehistory.com/archaeology/white_horse3.html |access-date=14 June 2017}}</ref> In ''[[Idylls of the King]]'', written between 1859 and 1885, [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]] compares [[King Arthur]]'s removal of certain corrupt judges, who had been installed by his predecessor, Uther, to the way in which "Men weed the White Horse on the Berkshire hills, to keep him bright and clean as heretofore."<ref name=idylls>{{cite wikisource |last=Tennyson |first=Alfred |author-link=Alfred, Lord Tennyson |date=1859–1885 |title=Idylls of the King |wslink= |chapter=Geraint and Enid}}</ref> [[G. K. Chesterton|G.K. Chesterton]] also features the scouring of the White Horse in his [[epic poetry|epic poem]] ''[[The Ballad of the White Horse]]'', published in 1911, a romanticised depiction of the exploits of [[King Alfred the Great]].<ref>{{Gutenberg |no=1719 |author=[[G. K. Chesterton|Chesterton, G.K.]] |year=1911 |name=The Ballad of the White Horse |bullet=none}}</ref>

In modern fiction, [[Rosemary Sutcliff]]'s 1977 children's book ''[[Sun Horse, Moon Horse]]'' tells a fictional story of the Bronze Age creator of the figure,<ref>{{cite web |first=Anne |last=McFadgen |title=Rosemary Sutcliff |publisher=Historical Novels |url=http://www.historicalnovels.info/Rosemary-Sutcliff.html |access-date=14 June 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Anthony |last=Lawton |date=26 March 2014 |title=The Horse People of ''the Eagle of the Ninth'' different from the Horse People (Epidi) of Sun Horse, Moon Horse |website=rosemarysutcliff.com |url=https://rosemarysutcliff.com/2014/03/26/the-horse-people-of-the-eagle-of-the-ninth-different-from-the-horse-people-epidi-of-sun-horse-moon-horse/ |access-date=30 March 2019 |archive-date=30 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330202525/https://rosemarysutcliff.com/2014/03/26/the-horse-people-of-the-eagle-of-the-ninth-different-from-the-horse-people-epidi-of-sun-horse-moon-horse/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> and the White Horse and nearby Wayland's Smithy feature in a 1920s setting in the Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery/detective novel ''A Pale Horse'' by [[Caroline and Charles Todd|Charles Todd]]; a depiction of the White Horse appears on the book's dust jacket.<ref name=Todd2008>{{cite book |first=Charles |last=Todd |author-link=Caroline and Charles Todd |year=2008 |title=A Pale Horse: An inspector Ian Rutledge mystery |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-123356-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IerpsIT06MsC}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A Pale Horse |publisher=[[Caroline and Charles Todd|Charles Todd]] |type=publisher's promotional site |url=https://charlestodd.com/books/a-pale-horse/ |access-date=30 March 2019}}</ref> Tom Shippey suggests that the horse may have inspired the banner flown by the horsemen of Rohan in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth [[Tolkien's legendarium|legendarium]], which is a white horse upon a green field.<ref name=Shippey2005>{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Shippey |title=[[The Road to Middle-Earth]] |date=2005 |edition=Third |orig-year=1982 |publisher=[[HarperCollins|Grafton (HarperCollins)]] |isbn=978-0261102750}}</ref> The horse is central to the 1978 BBC Television serial ''[[The Moon Stallion]]'' by [[Brian Hayles]],<ref name="Bramwell2009">{{cite book |first=Peter |last=Bramwell|date=31 March 2009 |title=Pagan Themes in Modern Children's Fiction: Green Man, shamanism, Earth mysteries |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan, UK |isbn=978-0-230-23689-9 |page=167 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p-WHDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA199}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Moon Stallion, The (1978) |website=BFI Screenonline (screenonline.org.uk) |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1383693/index.html |access-date=30 March 2019}}</ref> who later novelised the series.<ref>{{cite book |first=Brian |last=Hayles |author-link=Brian Hayles |year=1978 |title=The Moon Stallion |publisher=The Book Service Ltd |isbn=0859391345}}</ref> "The horse on the chalk" in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s [[Tiffany Aching]] series is inspired by the Uffington White Horse. Pratchett (who is famous for his sardonic humor) said "By an ''amazing'' coincidence, the horse carved on the chalk in ''[[A Hat Full of Sky]]'' (2004) is remarkably similar to the Uffington White Horse."<ref>{{cite book |last=Pratchett |first=Terry |author-link=Terry Pratchett |year=2004 |title=A Hat Full of Sky |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers Inc |isbn=9780062435279 |pages=280}}</ref> The White Horse is a significant setting, plot point, and symbol in the 2018 novel ''[[Lethal White]]'', the fourth instalment in the [[Cormoran Strike]] detective series,<ref>{{cite book |author=Galbraith, Robert (pseudonym of J.K. Rowling) |author-link=J. K. Rowling |date=18 September 2018 |title=Lethal White |title-link=Lethal White |place=London, UK |publisher=Sphere Books |isbn=978-0751572858}}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=January 2019}} and inspired the 2022 [[A. F. Steadman]] novel ''Skandar and The Unicorn Thief''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.imagininghistory.co.uk/post/annabel-steadman-on-skandar-ancient-burial-mounds-and-why-you-should-never-trust-a-sparkly-unicorn#google_vignette |title=Annabel Steadman on Skandar, ancient burial mounds and why you should never trust a sparkly Unicorn |date=27 April 2023 |website=Imagining History |access-date=13 June 2024}}</ref>

===Music===
[[John Gardner (composer)|John Gardner]]'s ''Ballad of the White Horse'' (1959) was inspired by [[The Ballad of the White Horse|Chesterton's epic poem]] of the same name. It was recently recorded by the City of London Choir, accompanied by the [[BBC Concert Orchestra]], and conducted by [[Hilary Davan Wetton]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Gardner: The Ballad of the White Horse |url=https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8774915--john-gardner-the-ballad-of-the-white-horse |access-date=2023-07-30 |website=Presto Music |language=en}}</ref>

[[David Bedford]]'s ''Song of the White Horse'' (1978), set for ensemble and children's choir and commissioned for the [[BBC]]'s ''[[Omnibus (UK TV series)|Omnibus]]'' programme, depicts a journey along a footpath alongside the Uffington Horse and includes words from Chesterton's poem. The composition requires the choir to inhale [[helium]] to sing the "stratospherically high notes" of the climax,<ref>{{cite web |title=David Bedford's ''The Song of the White Horse'' |date=5 November 2011 |publisher=BBC Radio&nbsp;3 |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016vks3 |access-date=29 June 2017}}</ref> accompanied by aerial footage of the horse animated to show it rearing up from the ground.<ref>{{cite AV media |people = David Bedford (Composer), Tony Staveacre (Director) |year = 1978 |title = The Song of the White Horse |medium = TV |url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlIAlaiE6Do |access-date = 29 June 2017 | publisher = BBC |series = [[Omnibus (UK TV series)|Omnibus]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Gary S. |last=Dalkin |title=David Bedford: ''Song of the White Horse'' also featuring ''Star Clusters, Nebulae, & Places in Devon'' |publisher= musicweb-international.com |url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/june00/whitehorse.htm |access-date=29 June 2017}}</ref> A recording, produced by [[Mike Oldfield]], was released by Oldfield Music in 1983.<ref>{{Discogs release |release=2866432 |name=David Bedford – Star Clusters, Nebulae, & Places in Devon / The Song Of The White Horse |type=album}}</ref>

The Uffington Horse is illustrated on the cover of ''[[English Settlement]]'' (1982), the fifth studio album by the [[Swindon]] band [[XTC]],<ref name="pollard" /><ref>{{Discogs master |master=70130 |name=English Settlement |type=album}}</ref> and appears (among other symbols copied from [[Barbara G. Walker]]'s ''The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects''<ref>{{cite book |last=Gaar |first=Gillian G. |year=2006 |title=Nirvana's ''In Utero'' |publisher=Continuum |isbn=0-8264-1776-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Robert |last=Benson |date=13 September 2009 |title=Nirvana – ''In Utero'' |series=Album cover art stories |publisher=SoundStageDirect |url=http://sound-stage-direct.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/album-cover-art-stories-nirvana-in.html |access-date=29 June 2017}}</ref>) on the back cover of [[Nirvana (band)|Nirvana]]'s final album, ''[[In Utero (album)|In Utero]]'' (1993).<ref name="pollard" /> Painted in 2024, a public mural of the ''English Settlement'' sleeve, prominently depicting the Uffington Horse, features on Crombey Street, Swindon.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gardner |first1=Ben |title=XTC mural in Swindon town centre paid for by superfan |url=https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/24217784.xtc-mural-swindon-town-centre-paid-superfan/ |website=Swindon Advertiser |access-date=9 June 2024 |date=29 March 2024}}</ref>