Cabell's Horses
Horses galloped freely in James Branch Cabell's imagination. The name Cabell comes from the Latin word caballus meaning horse, and a rearing stallion was Cabell's heraldic emblem. His 1926 work, The Silver Stallion, concerns (among other things) a group of lords known as the Fellowship of The Silver Stallion. And among the items in Cabell's collection at VCU Libraries is a group of horse statuettes with elaborate accompanying labels. These horses create a multi-layered puzzle, connecting Cabell's writings with both mythology and reality, and their naming follows closely the list of legendary horses in the author's well-worn copy of Brewer's A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
A selection of those figurines with their mythical names is shown below. Clicking on the image will take you to more details of their accompanying labels.
