O (Horse)

Those born in the year of the Horse are said to inherit the nature of the horse, in which yin is born at the height of yang. Outwardly they are full of heat and activity — like the post horse that travels between the great relay stations where roads meet in every direction — but inwardly, the symbols encyclopedia says, they are a "fire of civilisation" that lights up the darkness: gifted for the life of the mind, education, religion, the arts and culture, and better suited to mental than to physical work. Because 午 is the most fiery of the branches and its animal so active, the encyclopedia adds, it has shaped the social image of women born in Horse years.

The encyclopedia gives a portrait of each of the five Horse years of the sixty-year cycle, each with its colour: those born in a gabo year (甲午) are the blue horse — overconfident and apt to look down on others, eloquent and artistic, better at mental than physical work, and wise to beware of gossip; byeongo (丙午), the red horse — open, broad-minded and sociable, hasty, headlong and blunt, but bearing no grudges; muo (戊午), the yellow horse — drawn to religion, philosophy and education, straight-laced and inflexible but bold, and easily bored; gyeongo (庚午), the white horse — loyal and jealous of their honour, conservative, good in an organisation but less so in business of their own; imo (壬午), the black horse — keenly interested in money and in love, and fortunate in both wealth and office. For people of the Horse, it adds, the samjae — the three years of misfortune — fall in the years of the Monkey, the Rooster and the Dog.

For Koreans the horse was more than livestock. It was a means of transport and part of daily life, worked and hunted alongside people, and was a military resource important enough to be managed directly by the central government; post horses carried urgent messages and war horses served in battle. Under Joseon the horses of the kingdom were recorded on distribution maps, and books on treating and managing horses show how much care went into them. From Unified Silla through Goryeo and Joseon it was a farm horse, a subject for art and craft, a military mount and a courier.

The best-known Korean breed is the Jeju horse, raised, it is said, since the days of Buyeo and Goguryeo: small and compact enough to pass under fruit trees — hence its name gwahama, "horse under the fruit trees" — yet of great endurance, and a precious asset. Horses are rare in Korea today outside a few areas, tourist sites and racecourses, but the museum notes that their image lives on as the emblem of companies and products.

In ancient relics the horse is the creature that links this life and the next: the horse-shaped vessels, horse legs and mounted figures found in the tombs of Gaya and Silla, and the horses of the Goguryeo tomb murals, show the dead and their souls riding to the other world, and in funerals a horse was given to the deceased to ride there. The Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms and the History of the Three Kingdoms both speak of the horse as a sacred being: it appeared among the auspicious signs at the birth of founding kings such as Geumwa, Bak Hyeokgeose and Jumong, and a horse appeared to foretell the fall of Baekje.

The character 午, the symbols encyclopedia explains, marks the moment when yang energy is at its height and a single strand of yin begins to rise from below and stops it from spreading further — yin piercing upward against yang like an arrow (矢). Of all the twelve branches, 午 is the most intensely fiery, and its animal is very active, a horse of the post roads.

The Cheonmado, the "Painting of the Heavenly Horse", raises the horse to a heavenly animal and shows the aesthetics of ancient Silla as they were. The ancient tombs also hold many of the horse's accessories — ornaments, bands, bells — signs that the horse was a valued animal close to people. In later times the horse was ridden by grooms, young men, lovers, pathfinders and strongmen in old novels, prose and folk songs.

In the seasonal customs the horse was one of the six domestic animals, and rites for the horse god were held on the last day of the first lunar month and the last day of the tenth. Some villages still keep horses in statues, in paintings or in their shrines: the horse was thought to be ridden by the village's guardian gods, enshrined to ward off attacks by tigers, and offered for the success of cauldron and pottery workshops.

Horses also took part in festivities such as the masangje and the yakmahi, rituals to entertain the local gods, and in gyeokgu (擊毬), a kind of polo in which riders struck a red ball out through a gate — a game, the museum says, in which the hearts of rider and horse beat as one.

The Horse, the Tiger and the Dog form one of the four harmonious triads (samhap, 삼합): in the museum's words, the tiger's roar, the dog's metallic bark and the horse's neigh are in harmony with one another. The symbols encyclopedia adds the Sheep among the Horse's friends and names the Rat as the animal it clashes with.

The Ox is the Horse's wonjin (원진; 牛嗔馬不耕), the animal in conflict with it: "the ox resents the horse that does not plough". The hard-working ox cannot bear the horse, which mostly stands about doing nothing but eat — and in fact a stable next to a cowshed does not make for good neighbours. Wonjin, the encyclopedia explains, means that the two feel affection for each other yet hate and resent each other too, and it weighs heavily in marriage compatibility.