The Steeds of the Younglings

*laughing*

I do the best I can and hope for a miracle.

Here's a rough sketch of the Younglings' rides:

Merri on Glisten, a chestnut Percheron (the 'blooded' horses of these books); Arabians for Diann and Corrbed; Welsh Ponies for Dothann and Brann; a Shetland for little Rua.

It's not finished by a long shot but what the heck. I'm having way too much fun with this, I tell ya. I spent hours deciding who was going to ride what kind of 'horse'. The only one I knew for sure was that Merri was on a Percheron; she's the only one who has an actual full-sized official Dunnottar horse. The rest I had to figure out. Diann and Corrbed are too big for ponies so I went with Arabians for them being as they aren't as big as the Percherons. Dothann and Brann are old enough to not want to ride Shetlands, so they got Welsh Ponies, leaving little Rua with her little Shetland Pony.

Part of the fun of this has been remembering the ponies and horses of my own ancient past, my younger days.

Grandad raised Quarterhorses and Herefords - working horses and red cattle.

But he had a couple of ponies for us little ones. These were Muggy, a Shetland Pony, and Midnight, a Welsh Pony.

Now you would think that it would make sense to start us on the smallest of the bunch, Muggy the Shetland. But it didn't work that way. We (at least I) started with Midnight, the Welsh Pony. You see, although he was bigger, Midnight was the sweetest thing on the face of the earth. Muggy, by comparison, was a demon from hell.

Once we got to a certain age, old enough to not ride with an adult or be led by one, we got to ride Midnight. Someone would help us saddle up, and around the yard we would go, first being led and then on our own. 

When we got proficient with Midnight, we could give Muggy a try. After giving that a try or two, it was a distinct relief to get back up on Midnight. 

Midnight would go where I wanted him to go. He would walk, trot, lope like he was supposed to. He never bucked, no matter what. He never bit. He never kicked. He never tried to swipe me off on the corral posts. He never was anything but kind and gentle.

Muggy, the devil, was the opposite. He did all of the above bad things and none of the good ones. He was mean.

We did, however, learn to ride him and to make him do what we wanted instead of any old thing he felt like at any given time.

As we grew, we naturally started eyeing the Quarterhorses. Me, I had my eye on a palomino named Mr. Ed after the horse in the television show, the one who could talk.

When I was big enough and strong enough and capable enough to saddle him, that's when I got to ride him.

Saddling him wasn't a real problem; he was good natured about it for the most part. Except for the times he took a deep breath and swelled his chest cavity just before I tightened the cinch. I'd to go climb aboard and he'd let that breath out. And the saddle wasn't on nearly as firmly as I had figured. Twice he did that and then Grandad told me to knee him in the belly when I tightened the cinch. Worked like a charm, that did. Whoosh - out would go his breath. And quick like a snake I'd tighten that cinch.

There have been a couple of other horses in my life but Mr. Ed will forever have my heart. He grew old out on the ranch and his bones may be there yet for all I know.

Anyway, looking at the mounts of the Younglings, there are no Quarterhorses among them (the breed wasn't a breed back then). Dothann's pony looks like he might have an attitude, Rua's little pony needs to get the hair out of her eyes, and Brann's pony seems to be a nice person.

At any rate, I've got a lot of fixing to do on that sketch if I intend to use it, and the Younglings to get onto their mounts. I can only hope to get the figures right without wrecking what I've already got done here.

I started with the biggest, drew it complete; drew the next one over the top of it and erased the parts of the horse behind it; and so it went. Seems strange to have erased so much of the work I put into them, but it is what it is - has to be that way.

And I guess I'd better get to it or it won't get done.

It's been far too long since I've done any sketching to speak of - it will be good for me to get back into it. It's for the fun of it - I'm certainly not much good at it, but it is fun.