Earlier this month, E. Kaiser Writes released a
trio of new books entitled "Thaw." I haven't read them yet, but they sound interesting. She is here today to tell us about a Tompte, a very important horse in "Thaw."
P: Thanks for coming! I'm curious about this all-important horse.
E: Okay! Well, you've picked a fun subject today!
This
is the back info on Tomtpe, the most important horse in the Thaw books.
At least he knows that he is. You see, he is not just any horse, but a
very special horse. He belongs to a prince of Demargen and that makes
him a royal horse. Or a royal's horse, if you want to be picky.
Tompte thinks there's not much difference between the two.
P: He sounds like quite the character all ready; tell me more!
E: Okay, so the quintessential Prince Charming's horse is of course white. Always white.
The war leader's horse is black, and also the bad guys horse.
A lot of time the girl's horse is a yellow or beige color...
But the prince's horse is always a white/gray.
(For
those of you less into horses than some, "gray" is a color pattern that
actually isn't gray all the time. In fact a horse that is a "gray" is
invariably born dark, (whether that is black, brown or chestnut) and
then as they grow their hair "grays out". Different graying-genes have
different time-spans; some family lines start going white as young as
two years old, while others go slower and so retain some color late in
life. These slow-gray-ers make for the gorgeous dapple-grays and
steel-grays that will hold that phase of the pattern for several years.
In the end, though, they all end up white.
Like a snowy haired old man or woman, "white" horses are rarely born white. They are grays.
Some slow graying genes can actually hold onto the mane and tail color
for a long time, and it is the last to go. On others it goes white right
away. The gray gene is probably one of the most baffling and
untrackable horse colors for equine geneticists to figure out... and
they haven't gotten it coded yet.
So
it remains in the realm of "horse sense" and those still in the
business of buying and selling horses rely on their own experience and
the long history of horse-trading stories when dealing with grays.
How long will they hold their color? Will they be dappled? Or that worst of all fates; flea-bitten?
A
fleabitten gray is generally a horse that was born chestnut, and even
though its hide goes white, specks of if stays red. This is considered
among the least attractive of grays, and not at all prized.
There is a stack of horse trading lore dealing specifically with grays,
how some unscrupulous traders can "color" dapples onto a white horse to
make it look prettier and fetch a higher price, or to make it look
younger for the same purpose.
But that is not our subject today.)
P: Amazing! I had no idea there was such a science to gray and white horses.
As
we were saying, the Prince's horse must be white, and although at first
I thought I might break the mold and give our prince a different
colored horse, Tompte soon shook his head decidedly and insisted that he
was white. And all white, having grayed quickly and thoroughly, so that
although he is still in his prime, (what Tompte considers to be his
prime, at any rate; around eight or so) he is pristine-ly white, as
befits a prince of Demargen's royal house.
Because
you see Demargen has a reputation to uphold. With twelve dashing,
gallant princes ahead of him, all Hess's brothers have set the bar high
in military exploits. For though the known world has not had a war in
almost a thousand years, the art of war has been kept alive with jousts
and robust competitions, which Hess's older brothers loved dearly and
did very well in.
The reputation goes back further than that, though, for old King
Leopold in his day, was a force to be reckoned with on the field as
well.
And so Demargen must keep up its chin and shine its buttons, because
even though long ago it lost it's claim to the then empty Noran throne
on a battlefield, it is not to be trifled with now. Or ever.
P: I'll be sure not to mess with Demargen!
E: So
Demargen cadets train harder than any other kingdom's cadets. Demargen
officers salute snappier, and with more meaning, than any other
kingdom's officers. And Demargen princes are drilled in the school of
honor and ability, turning out thirteen perfectly polished princes to
unleash upon the world; which receives them in various ways, but
is invariably impressed with their military precision.
And Tompte is a part of that, of which he is duly aware.
And though his boy may attend the Noran coronation on his own, he is
not alone. For he has a prince's horse, who knows his duty.
P: It sounds as if Tomte must have been fun to write.
E: This
horse turned into quite the character as I was writing, he just sort of
developed his own "voice" even though of course he can't speak. But
looking back on it, I realize that the horse from my past that was
channeling onto the page was just such a beastie... a half Welsh, half
Percheron that was 13 hands tall, mostly white and as full of importance
as a horse can get.
His
name was "Buddy", which if he would have understood English he
certainly would have objected to. He probably would have insisted on
being named "Prince" or at the very least "Duke".
Perhaps "Charger" would have been a better name for him, since there was nothing that could stop him.
He
rode and drove, and pulled a wagon as if he'd been born to it. (Which
of course he partially had, on his Percheron half.) He had a hitchy
little trot that just wouldn't give up, flicking his white feathered
hooves with each step, he looked the part of a proud harness horse.
He was just about six inches too short to be the sort of impressive he was aiming for!
But
he was cute as a bug... with a deep, Percheron jaw and a nice Welsh
muzzle... arched white neck with thick wavy white mane flowing over it.
But
he was a good horse. At eleven years old, I learned to ride on Buddy,
and even though he had all the heart in the world, his pulling horse
build wasn't designed for speediness. My brother would race away from us
on his Arab mare, and Buddy and I would be left loping along in the
dust. And then we'd run out of dust, for even that had settled by the
time we came along.
But
I was never worried with Buddy because he never bucked, didn't spook...
he was so solid and confidant he never met a worry. And he always knew
the way home, even if I didn't.
He was so coordinated he could stand on an ice-slicked sloping path...
and run in place to keep from falling down. Seriously, this was
actually witnessed one winter... he just moved his feet so fast he
didn't have time to slip, until he could edge himself off the icy patch.
This degree of dexterity is referenced in Prince of Demargen when
Hess asks Tompte to jump back over a wall onto the road toward him, and
Tompte does so from a standstill. It takes great coordination for a
horse to do that, not to mention great back muscles.
P: What skill--in both the real and fictional horses!
E: Buddy
could gallop away fully hobbled; tie his front feet together and he'd
simply left them both of the ground at once and hop off like that.
Pretty soon he was literally galloping around doing that, so the
decision was made to side hobble him. Most horses move their lateral
feet in opposite directions and so tying left hind to left front
effectively stops them from going too far.
Not Buddy. He took maybe half a day, and then figured out how to "pace", moving both laterals forward at the same time.
We liked to keep him in the yard where we lived at the time in the
mountains, so he could eat the grass down. But he kept turning mobile on
us, until we finally ended up tying his front feet and a hind foot.
That kept him restricted... poor Buddy. Not even he could figure out
how to lift all three feet of the ground at once. Though he did try for
some time, just in case.
His
antics were so amusing and impressive, that we soon let him go
completely, where he could charge about the place as he liked. He
enjoyed this very much, and the sight of the little white horse grazing
tranquilly along the creek-bed below the house was like something out of
a fairy-tale. Then he'd get the notion to gallop up the trail to the
barn, all rounded neck and floating mane and rat-a-tat-tat thundering
hooves on the forest path. He seemed to enjoy showing off his freedom to
the other horses in the pens.
Buddy is a memory horse that will not be forgotten... and his
indomitable spirit, good looks, physical prowess, and quirky character
lives on in Tompte, (who is taller, like a riding horse should be.)
But he too would make a white vision of loveliness grazing lush spring grass along a gurgling creek in a tiny mountain valley.
And there the both shall ever live in our dreams.
P: What a beautiful picture! And what a great story of the inspiration for Tompte! Thanks for joining me today. I look forward to learning more about your new books. All the best!
