Lady of Horses

Epona #1

by Judith Tarr

In the grandfathers' time, when few yet living had been born, the People worshipped the horse, and served him, and took the gifts that he gave them: his meat, his hide, the milk of his mares. But he had not yet granted to men the greatest gift of all: the gift of riding on his back, and racing the wind.

Sparrow is a shaman's daughter in a tribe that forbids women to be kings, to be shamans, to be anything but silent and tractable servants to the all-powerful men. They may not ever ride the horses that are the life and soul of the tribe, or even approach them, for fear of angering the gods.

But Sparrow knows another story, a story of the woman who first rode a horse, and her brother who took both the horse and the glory away from her. Sparrow sees visions and dreams dreams--and her brother the shaman takes them from her and presents them as his own.

Then the most sacred of all horses, the embodiment of Horse Goddess herself, claims Sparrow for her servant, and sends her on a journey that will change Sparrow and her people forever.

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Historical, Historical Fantasy, Prehistoric, Horses, Fiction

460 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

AKA Caitlin Brennan, Kathleen Bryan.

Judith Tarr (born 1955) is an American author, best known for her fantasy books. She received her B.A. in Latin and English from Mount Holyoke College in 1976, and has an M.A. in Classics from Cambridge University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Yale University. She taught Latin and writing at Wesleyan University from 1988-1992, and taught at the Clarion science-fiction-writing workshops in 1996 and 1999.

She raises and trains Lipizzan horses at Dancing Horse Farm, her home in Vail, Arizona. The romantic fantasies that she writes under the name Caitlin Brennan feature dancing horses modeled on those that she raises.

Reviews

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out not loving this, since it was plodding along a bit at the beginning, but I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. A fun saga set in the "dawn of time" on the Asian steppes, at some point after people had domesticated horses but before they had metal tools & weapons. Similar in feel to Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear" series. I'll read more by this author.

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything about this book spoke to me. I was entirely swept under Horse Goddess’s spell and loved every minute of it.

Sparrow is the heroine of this tale, the daughter of the (White Stone people) clan’s Shaman.

Sparrow is gifted with the ability of foreseeing visions and making predictions although it is forbidden for women to do so, as well as using weapons and riding horses.

Sparrows brother Walker was not born with the abilities Sparrow was given, but wants the power and seeks to become the next Kings Sharman and forces these visions and predictions from Sparrow.

Sparrow is chosen and called too by Horse Goddess (mare horse) and begins to secretly ride her but one day she is caught in sight of the clans King and his warriors and immediately flees the clan with Horse Goddess, the King’s stallion and her brothers wife/childhood friend and travels far south where her mothers people are from and where she discovers their way of life is very different to what she had grown to know.

Sparrows childhood friend Wolfcub/Kestrel who is devotedly in love with her is then sent off by the King to hunt her down and being her back.

This is a story of strength, adventure and taking back the power for women, with authentic history from a prehistoric time and a beautifully weaved passionate romance with destined love.

[Shazza Maddog · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably read this book a long time ago - it certainly felt familiar. It also felt rather slow. Despite that, I enjoyed Sparrow's story and the way her life changed and in changing her life, she changed the people she'd grown up with.

An unwanted daughter of a captured woman, Sparrow's father is the shaman of the White Stone people, who follow a herd of grey horses. Her half-brother, Walker, is a shaman as well but has far greater ambitions - if only he was a shaman in fact rather than a dangerous herbalist. When Sparrow gets called by one of the grey mares, one nearly silver in color, she realizes the mare is more than just flesh and blood but the Horse Goddess clothed in skin. Sparrow knows a secret though - told to her by her grandmother, that women and horses are bound and when the grey mare calls, Sparrow must answer, even if it means destroying the world as she knows it.

Sort of like Clan of the Cave Bear but more mystical.

[Sue Shipley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sparrow is the daughter of the clan's Shaman. She also has visions and can make predictions, though is is forbidden for women. Women are treated as cattle and do all the work of the tribe except hunting. They are forbidden weapons, to ride horses and to look men in the eye.

Sparrow is called to the Horse Goddess and rides her. When she is seen, she must flee the clan and travel far south.

This is a passionately romantic book, historically accurate, and wildly adventurous. This takes the reader back to a time of goddess worship and women's powers.

I really enjoyed this book.

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another good reason I avoid adult fiction like the plague. Likable characters and good world building fused with unnecessary immorality.
I only made it to page 50 before I had to put it down. Very dissappointed.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couldn't put it down. I keep thinking though that a different title like "Horse Goddess' Daughter" would have been more fitting. Also a different cover artist, this looks way too rough, these horses aren't as beautiful as depicted.

[Thistle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long enough to be three books (and broken down into parts one through three), but just one really, really, really long book.

Part One was great. More than great, I enjoyed it so much that I made as much extra time during the day as I could to read more, and I stayed up late every single night to read. Much (very very much) like Clan of the Cave Bear, it was set in the early days of man, when both Cro-Magnon man and Neanderthals were both thriving at the same time. The main character, Sparrow, was living in a tribe of the more modern men. Like Clan of the Cave Bear, women were less than second-class citizens, they were given the respect and rights of herd animals.

Even as hard as it was to read about that treatment of women (especially now...) I really loved the setting and worldbuilding of this first part.

Part Two was... less great. Sparrow and another woman escape their tribe and join up with a tribe of Neanderthal people. The story got really painful here, because the Noble Savage trope was in full force. Unlike modern men, these simpler people not just thought women were equal, they took it to an extreme. It was about as opposite of the modern men as you could get: For example, everyone, man and women, walked around topless (wouldn't some women at least want some support? Especially since they were described as having "full" breasts repeatedly. Even when horseback riding, they were bare breasted). Women were the sexual aggressive ones, and they were the ones to sleep around, while men just waited to be wanted by one. More than that, the Neanderthal group didn't believe in monogamy, which would have been perfectly fine if they didn't look in wonder and awe on the modern men's tribe's monogamy.

There were so many sex scenes. So many. None of them were well written. Like Clan of the Cave Bear, the author also used different words for things. Men had "rods". Women had "secret places".

Still, even with those issues, it would have been an interesting enough story if Sparrow wasn't on the road to becoming the most powerful shaman ever.

Part Three went downhill so fast. For unimportant plot reasons, the modern men tribe was going to make war on the Neanderthal tribe. When they got there, plans changed, and they decided to enter the village as guests instead of to start war. And so they all started sleeping together.

More sex. So much sex. So much bad sex.

The modern men, who for generations only saw women as pack animals they could sleep with, just suddenly embraced women being able to do all the things they could. (Behold the power of sex!)

Add onto that that Sparrow became literally the most powerful person on the planet... (And had sex. So much sex.)

The ending was even worse though. During a battle between the two tribes, the women of the modern tribe (again, who had been for generations oppressed to the point where they weren't even permitted to look at a man) all rose up and attacked the men. Every single one of the women physically attacked, restrained, held weapons to the men. This change in the women took place in the time it took for a man to have a fistfight. Minutes.

It's really depressing when a book starts out so great and ends up so bad.

[A. L.]

DNF at ~25%. I have to wonder if Ms. Tarr also wrote sitcoms and Disney channel soap operas in the 80’s and 90’s because that’s exactly what this read like, except with odd sex encounters. I actually would find it interesting to see how a teenager today, who did not grow up on those tired old tropes, would find this book, but for myself, who did, I just can’t take it seriously enough to take anymore time.

[Heather Bohon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a feminist pre-historical fantasy book about the Irish before they lived in Ireland. They lived on the Asian Steppe and tamed horses. Warning this book is not for children. It contains sex scenes and cannibalism as well as human sacrifice and war. Sorry about the spoiler just make sure whoever reads this is at least 21.

[Rindis · Rating 3 out of 5]

So of course I come to the "first" of the Epona books last. Admittedly, it was the third one written (out of four), so I'm not completely out of order, just mostly.

Not that it really matters, since while they all have similar themes, they are at best only passingly related to each other. This time we're dealing with Proto-Indo-Europeans (or Proto-Proto-Indo-Europeans), somewhere on the steppes of Asia around, say, 4000 BCE.

Like the other books we're treated to nomadic life, patriarchal politics and the kind of naturalistic shamanism that melds internal senses with being part of a bigger world. This is again entirely appropriate for the time period of society, and slides it towards the fantasy side of the aisle while also being historically appropriate.

This follows the general feel for such as the other books have had, along with their other themes, such as a love of horses, and a coming of age story. While there are again two distinctly different cultures at play here, this book is less about a direct clash between them, which helps Lady of Horses stand on its own better. It doesn't feel quite as mythic in tone as the other books in the series, but I think I enjoyed the primary characters more here.

[Lisa (Harmonybites) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a historical novel with elements of fantasy set around 6,000BC, around the time horses were first domesticated. I do find the pre-historical period fascinating. So much of what we think of as human originates in that period and I've found few novels set in that era other than Auel's series that starts with Clan of the Cave Bear. Tarr's story involves the ancestors of the Celts on the Eurasian steppes. In her story, it was a young woman who first tamed a horse in her tribe, but her discovery was usurped by her brother and only males can be riders. That first rider tells the true tale as she's dying to her great, great granddaughter, Sparrow. Sparrow is soon drawn to ride a mare, even though the penalty for a woman who rides a horse is to be buried alive.

I didn't care for the book much. The prose style isn't stellar--there are point of view slips and Tarr has this disconcerting habit of calling the male member a "rod" (when she isn't calling it a "manly organ" or "manly parts.") Indeed, I could wish this was a young adult book. It would have fit, this being a coming of age tale, and teen girls might relish more the girl power message. Moreover it would have meant no sex scenes. I'm no prude, and I can relish them well-written, but these were frequent and graceless. But I think I was most irked by this being one of those stories that thinks creating a strong female character means making almost every male character a jerk. Well, at least in the first part among the patriarchal tribe. Then we meet another tribe with a female chief and we're over the rainbow in what I thought was a rather pat way. When the two groups meet again, I thought it rather puzzling how easily Sparrow's tribesmen got over the shock of women on horses when this was supposed to be sacrilege.

The story and characters just never clicked with me. I think I would have given up early in if this book hadn't been on my shelf unread for years, giving me an investment in getting through it. It's not the kind of book I imagine I'll ever read again, and thus won't be keeping its place on my bookshelf much longer.

[Fionna Guillaume · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book some years ago, and still it lingers with me. The prehistoric societies are so vividly depicted, they stay on long after the story itself begins to fade in memory. Scenes from the book leap out at me still, messages of women's power in the face of oppression, of triumphs both in silence and in speaking out. If I remember it so well after such a long time, this is certainly one to read again - and suggest that others do the same.

[Jonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young girl defies her society's customs to find her inner strength and courage through a special horse. It's a story of rising up from oppression and shedding societal labels of inferiority, and it's a many leveled love story with plenty of adventure. The heroine loves her horses, and two men. Talk about finding your independence! I recommend this to young adult women everywhere.

[Kristyn Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved every minute of this book. The characters were exceptional and easy to get attached to. I, again wish there was more stories with horse goddess and the early tribes of european region.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic, distant prequel to White Mare

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book. LOVE. LOVELOVELOVE. Ahem. (love!) Somehow I have missed the Epona #1, and will have to go look for it now. (love!!!!!)