Horses at night
Dec. 20th, 2025 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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little_detailsIf my characters have made camp in a wood for the night while travelling on horseback, what will the horses be doing?
I was sort of picturing them standing dozing together under a tree somewhere nearby -- possibly tied, possibly hobbled, possibly just being a herd together -- but poking around on the Internet suggests that if not shut up in a stable horses are actually quite active by night. (Which messes with the story, as quite apart from anything else nobody is going to be able to hear anything while keeping watch if the horses are busy foraging around!)
I was sort of picturing them standing dozing together under a tree somewhere nearby -- possibly tied, possibly hobbled, possibly just being a herd together -- but poking around on the Internet suggests that if not shut up in a stable horses are actually quite active by night. (Which messes with the story, as quite apart from anything else nobody is going to be able to hear anything while keeping watch if the horses are busy foraging around!)
Well ...
Date: 2025-12-20 07:11 am (UTC)It depends on a lot of factors.
* If they worked all day carrying people, the horses will be tired, hungry, and thirsty.
-- If they smell water, it will be difficult to keep them out of it unless they are very well trained. People prefer to camp near water when possible.
-- The horses will need food. They can be given grain but also require roughage. If there is grass, they may be tied or hobbled where they can reach it. If there is not grass, they may try to eat the leaves -- some plants are palatable -- but they aren't really browsers.
-- Tired horses are more inclined to stay put than well rested horses.
* If they feel safe, they may lie down to sleep. If they don't feel safe, they will doze standing up.
* Horses need to be secured firmly or they are liable to get loose. Some can untie knots, but any horse can rip loose a bush or sapling if they spook. Think about how safe that forest is and how it feels to the horses, who are prey animals.
* Horses are not actually nocturnal, but wild ones are often crepuscular -- active at dawn and dusk -- so domestic ones may follow similar patterns. So they can be awake during parts of the night.
>> I was sort of picturing them standing dozing together under a tree somewhere nearby <<
They do actually do that. They may also groom each other. Horses are social creatures.
Oh, and they need to be untacked and groomed as part of setting up camp, unless the situation is so bad that nobody can afford to take things off which only works for a day or two and is bad for everyone.
>> possibly tied, possibly hobbled, <<
Tied is more secure, hobbled gives better access to food. It depends on how safe the area is and how well trained the horses are.
>> possibly just being a herd together <<
Bad idea unless the horses are super well trained or your characters are elves / have animal mindspeech etc. They are prey animals and wander at best, bolt at worst.
>> (Which messes with the story, as quite apart from anything else nobody is going to be able to hear anything while keeping watch if the horses are busy foraging around!) <<
Horses are part of the night watch. See above re: prey animals. They can hear and smell better than humans, also see better in low light. If they hear or smell a threat, they will first become restless, then try to get loose and move away, then freak the fuck out -- depending on how serious or close the threat is. Equestrian characters should understand the normal behavior of horses and will know what to ignore, when to check the perimeter, and when to rouse everyone.
Normal horse noises are fairly quiet: munching food, sloshing water, shuffling feet, low mumbling conversation. They don't tend to advertise their presence, because they are edible. If another horse approaches, they may whicker or whinney greetings. A dominant horse may make a louder challenge to a threat if they think they can drive it away, like a fox or coyote.
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-12-20 02:48 pm (UTC)I confess I definitely hadn't thought about that; fortunately my existing statement that the experienced members of the party 'set up camp' in what seemed like no time at all (while the viewpoint character kept finding himself getting in the way) can be stretched to cover a lot of implicit chores :-)
The camp is in a dell on a wooded hillside; there is probably a brook down at the bottom of the valley and tiny tributary streams feeding into it, so I'm guessing that someone either went down to get water or took the horses down to water them. No cooking was done (although that line about having to eat cold food was in fact cut for other reasons!) so the humans presumably ate and drank whatever supplies they had brought with them. It's only a short trip away from base rather than a long journey, so overnight horse-supplies would presumably have been brought as well... but grain rather than hay, for reasons of bulk.
There won't be any grass to speak of, judging by the woods we see in canon (and the ones around my home, which look very similar and are what I'm implicitly basing this scene on); just a lot of mud and fallen leaves, at this time of year, and a certain amount of understory of holly/hawthorn/elder/brambles. So nothing to browse really in the winter :-(
Lying down isn't terribly comfortable for the humans (tree roots/mud) and is probably less so for the horses, who are bigger.
The most dangerous thing in this forest is probably other humans, though I've suggested bears/wolves/boar as things that a lookout might be worried about. There's no predator on the move larger than a fox/owl/weasel (and there are not, in fact, any other humans around, although a watch has been set in case there might be). So the horses will be pretty relaxed, I assume.
That part I had actually visualised; they are not standing around fully tacked-up :-)
(Although what was *done* with the tack... not so much. Piled up on the ground somewhere?)
I have a feeling that hobbling isn't culturally appropriate (we never see it in canon, and in the children's books I used to read the normal procedure seemed to be to put on a halter *under* the bridle so that you could tie the animal up after taking the bridle off -- army horses were kept in picket-lines, but nobody ever suggested the use of hobbles). I think it may be a US thing for large areas of unenclosed grassland...
I was hoping they would just cluster together and stay put, but evidently they will need to be tied to a tree trunk/branches!
This was in fact literally where I broke off to fact-check in the middle of a sentence -- I was about to write that the horses were a dark unmoving mass that wasn't making any noise, therefore everything was presumably safe... then I started wondering about what the horses actually *would* be doing, and got spooked myself :-D
So it sounds as if my first instinct was accurate enough; the horses probably are gathered in a quietly dozing group, not doing very much (and possibly with one or more lying down).
I can’t even remotely speak as a Horse Girl, but…
Date: 2025-12-20 06:14 pm (UTC)I have a feeling that hobbling isn't culturally appropriate (we never see it in canon, and in the children's books I used to read the normal procedure seemed to be to put on a halter *under* the bridle so that you could tie the animal up after taking the bridle off -- army horses were kept in picket-lines, but nobody ever suggested the use of hobbles). I think it may be a US thing for large areas of unenclosed grassland...
Wherewhen in Storyland are you? (Your nom de net has a Tolkienesque ring, and I get the impression that your current WIP is set in France.)
Hobbling was, and perhaps still is, a practice in Ireland, although the commenters on this Facebook post mostly report it being applied to cows: https://www.facebook.com/folklore.ie/posts/spancelwas-reminded-of-this-word-today-by-a-friend-in-newfoundland-a-word-many-o/1155624124795036/
Re: I can’t even remotely speak as a Horse Girl, but…
Date: 2025-12-20 06:24 pm (UTC)I don't know where the 'forest' scenes were actually filmed (probably Central Europe!), but they look pretty akin to our local oakwood/beech hangars etc -- which predate the Enclosures so are reasonably ancient woodland, albeit managed by humans. But then the story-forest is reasonably near human habitation, so people are probably also feeding their pigs/coppicing/making charcoal etc. in parts of it.
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-12-20 11:30 pm (UTC)No! Tack needs to be *off* the ground so it can a - dry out (the underside of a saddle and the saddle blanket itself will most likely be damp-to-wet from sweat), and to *stay* dry - from dew. So the tack will most likely be laid over low tree branches or branches (evergreen are good for this) will be cut and the tack laid on that. Blankets draped over branches to dry out, as well. Bridles can just be hung off a branch or the horn of the saddle, if they're made with one, but they, too, are hung to dry/keep dry.
Riders who know what's what will groom (curry) the horses all over to remove excess mud, sweat, burrs, etc., and check their hooves for stones, loose shoes, and overall health, as well as making sure nobody has a sore leg or anything. Horse care before people care. :D
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-12-20 11:46 pm (UTC)(Not an evergreen forest, and I'm not sure I'd choose cut holly as a saddle rack, personally... although our cats used to climb up the *outside* of a clipped holly bush, so it will support a fair bit of weight as such!)
From the fic point of view it just needs to be not-visible to the viewpoint character, or at least not visually obtrusive.
Canon calls him a 'farm boy', so he definitely knows that :-)
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-12-21 04:40 pm (UTC)The rope lines between trees can also serve as a corralling section of sorts, though the horses would likely also be tied via halter to one main line. In inclement weather, a tarp could be rigged to be a half shelter, keeping the horses, their food, and their tack drier. Putting damp blankets back on a wet horse is bad for everybody, and would be an "emergency only" style thing when in dire need.
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-12-20 09:29 pm (UTC)The only thing I will add is that horses can be trained in very different ways. A horse trained as a war mount will react differently than one trained as a plow horse that has been pressed into service as a travel mount. And horses, like other beings, are not all the same. They have personalities and foibles. Some are bold and curious, some are nervous and anxious, some are lazy, some get impatient or cranky when bored, and so on.
Also, horses startle relatively easily (thus the use of blinkers to limit horses' peripheral vision in busy places like cities) and most creatures are wary or afraid confronted with something new that might be dangerous. Being prey animals, horses may startle or over-react to a new thing because the default is most likely to fear that the new thing is dangerous. I wouldn't want to be too close the first time a horse sees a wizard cast an illusion, for example, or worse, a fireball.
Hmmmm, I had more to say than I thought!
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-12-20 10:20 pm (UTC)These horses will have been war-trained, I think -- not necessarily to fight as an extension of the rider, but in order not to bolt at the sound of firearms, or if someone is waving weapons around either from their backs or nearby.
I wonder if a horse would be fooled by an illusion at all, or if it would be too obviously 'fake', not registering on any of its other senses?
(But if a horse can be terrified by a piece of flapping paper, it can probably be terrified by the movement of an intangible object...)
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-12-24 12:55 pm (UTC)As you say re: a horse being terrified by a piece of flapping paper, I think anyone who has known a horse well has seen a horse spook badly enough to throw a rider at things like:
- the flapping of a harmless plastic bag in the distance
- a flag on a flagpole nowhere near
- a pigeon flushing from the undergrowth after previously not spooking at any pigeons doing this
- a strange noise
- sometimes its own fart (yes, really, you can look these videos up)
A horse would ABSOLUTELY spook at an illusion, because horses Spook First, Calm Down After, as a survival technique. Unless very specifically trained or desensitised (and let's be real, this is not 100% foolproof 100% of the time), any horse will go 'OH SHIT!!!!' first and then go 'haha wow, that was silly' after. Usually after its rider is on the floor staring up like 'what the HELL?'
Tbh, the intangibility of the illusion might actually make the thing even worse, because it doesn't register on the senses. We've been raised on TV and other things that make us accept things not being 'grounded and weighted in reality' - but most animals don't have this, and indeed, humans who don't have this, often don't trust the images etc. as television and think of them as ghosts/spirits/magic instead, and react with (what seems to us) like disproportionate fear at first. Humans have to learn how to 'read' the television we watch, understand what a camera cut means, etc.
Again, unless an animal's been trained to be desensitised to something, they're going to spook worse if the thing isn't a 'Normal' thing.
That being said, it's your writing and this is all just the fun of talking about horse behaviour. I think just having the forest being predator-free, the horses being relatively well-trained for spooks/frights, and taking care of them, will serve you well in your scene. :D
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-12-24 04:38 pm (UTC)What I've actually written is (from the viewpoint of the character sitting up keeping watch): A darker mass of shadow, some way down the slope from the dell in which they'd camped, was the horses dozing together under a tree, huddled against the cold, with only an occasional snort of breath or jerk on a tether to betray their presence. While the horses were quiet there would be nothing stirring in the wood... and a glance up at the sky told him that at long last he he could reckon his watch as over.
And then a page or so later the character who has been woken up to take over the watch stumbled heavily over a log and cursed, and the horses snorted and startled in response (implicitly because they have just been jolted out of sleep). And everyone listens out for a minute or two and then relaxes -- implicitly in order to make sure this is just a reaction to the sudden unexpected noise from within camp, rather than to an external threat of some kind, but I'm not going into detail on any of this because (a) it's self-evident to the viewpoint character, and thus OOC to do an "As you know, Bob..." and (b) it's irrelevant to the story, so doesn't justify a big long look-I-did-research-and-am-going-to-justify-it digression :-p
The taking-care-of would inherently have happened before the start of the story, which opens with the character sitting up at night listening to his surroundings while everyone else is asleep. I thought I might have him sent down to get some water for the horses in the morning, though: their breath steaming, and shaggy in their winter coats -- these are not particularly elegant animals in canon, being stocky and feathered (Frisian, I believe).
Fortunately there is no magic in this universe, illusionary or otherwise :-D