The Great Mare
Giant mare in Renaissance works / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Great Mare (la Grand Mare, grant jument or grand'jument in French) was a gigantic mare that served as a mount for giants in several Renaissance works. Stemming from medieval traditions inspired by Celtic mythology, she first appeared in The Grand and Priceless Chronicles of the Great and Enormous Giant Gargantua, written in 1532, in which Merlin created her from bones atop a mountain.
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Grouping | Gigantic white mare |
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Sub grouping | Bayard |
Folklore | Folklore, Horse |
First attested | The Grand and Priceless Chronicles of the Great and Enormous Giant Gargantua |
Other name(s) | Grant Jument, Grand'jument |
Country | Traditional French oral stories |
Region | France |
Rabelais was inspired by these Chronicles and proceeded build on upon the given descriptions, including in his writings that the mare was Gargantua's mount in The Very Horrific Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel, which was published five years later. It was saddled up to be a parody, examples of this being the instances when the mare drowned her enemies with her urine and leveled all of the trees of Beauce, transforming the region into a plain.
This animal seemingly originated from a primeval dragon modeler or from the mountain of Celtic Gods. According to Henri Dontenville and Claude Gaignebet, the mount shares the same origin as Bayard's horse. There are also toponymes dedicated to her, without direct connections to Renaissance writings.