3 Mythic Mounts

Every now and then, a horse comes along that captures the imagination. Take this year's Triple-Crown threat, Big Brown. Sure, he came up short in Saturday's Belmont Stakes. But he still captured millions of hearts by winning both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes.

Better yet, take the majestic mounts of ancient mythology--heroic horses whose achievements are literally legendary. Some could fly. Others ran impossibly fast. Some even talked. Such mythical mounts have been capturing imaginations since time immemorial. But three--Pegasus, Sleipnir, and Rakhsh--were the greatest of them all.

Peerless Pegasus

According to Greek mythology, Pegasus was a beautiful horse born in an ugly way. His father was the sea god Poseidon, his mother the monster Medusa, and he was born when the hero Perseus lopped off his mother's head. Pegasus flew out of her severed neck. He retained his father's connection with water. A spring gushed forth everywhere his hoofs touched down.

As a winged horse, Pegasus could be a valuable friend. Riding on him, the hero Bellerophon vanquished the fire-breathing Chimera--a monster with a lion's front, a goat's middle, and a dragon's rear. Bellerophon got cocky, though, and tried to ride Pegasus to the top of Mount Olympus, to crash the gods' party. Zeus sent a fly to sting Pegasus, causing him to rear. Bellerophon tumbled to the ground, while Pegasus continued on to Olympus to serve the gods.

Swift-Footed Sleipnir

When it comes to strange births, Pegasus has nothing on Sleipnir. According to Norse mythology, the gods had just finished building Asgard, their heavenly abode, when a giant offered to build a wall around it. The price was high: if the giant finished the wall before spring, the gods would have to give him the sun and the moon, plus the hand of the goddess Freyja in marriage. Never believing the giant could finish the job in time, the gods agreed to the bargain.

But the giant got help from a magical stallion, and soon it was clear he would make his deadline. So Loki, the trickster god, turned himself into a mare and lured the stallion away. Bereft of his workhorse, the giant couldn't finish the wall in time. Meanwhile, Loki and the stallion got better acquainted, and Loki gave birth to a gray colt named Sleipnir.

Sleipnir was no ordinary horse. He had eight legs and magical runes carved on his teeth. Odin, king of the gods, took the colt as his mount, and Sleipnir became the greatest of all horses, able to fly through the heavens and carry his rider to places no one else could go--even to the land of the dead.

Raucous Rakhsh

Rakhsh couldn't fly, and he never traveled to the land of the dead, but there was never a better horse to have in a fight. In Persian mythology, Rakhsh was the mount of the hero Rostam, who grew so big and so strong that no ordinary horse could carry him. He tested many, but none could.

One day Rostam found a colt who was strong enough to hold him. He asked the herdsman who owned the horse, and the herdsman said he didn't know who the owner was--he had always heard the colt referred to as "Rostam's Rakhsh." It was fate. Man and horse were inseparable from that point on.

Once, when a lion was about to attack a sleeping Rostam, Rakhsh killed it by himself. Rostam woke up and scolded his horse for hogging all the glory. Another time, Rakhsh saved Rostam from a dragon, and then helped him kill the monster. In the end, the two heroes died together, when Rostam's half-brother tricked them into riding into a pit bristling with sharp stakes. Rostam's last act was to kill his brother with an arrow, before following his famous horse into the afterlife.