The White horse

the chalk figures of England are famous, but controversy surrounds them. How ancient are they? ah, that varies, as this BBC article points out:

Hill figures, emblazoned like scar tissue across England's undulating landscape, hark back to times when gods were honoured and appeased by grand gestures. Although horses - and some well-endowed giants - are perhaps the most well-known hill figures there are also some more unusual creatures and carvings. A lion stands proudly in Bedfordshire. A kiwi in Wiltshire is a testament to the homesick New Zealand soldiers once stationed nearby.

The Cerne Abbes Giant were once thought to be ancient, but newer studies show it dates only to the Middle Ages, according to the BBC

but the classic Uffington White Horse probably dates back to the early Iron Age.

wikipedia commons

it's not just the carving per se that is amazing, but the fact that it hasn't been overgrown and disappeared in the last 2000 years.

Over time, though its original purpose was lost, local people maintained a connection with the White Horse that ensured its continued existence. “If it weren’t maintained, the White Horse would be overgrown and disappear in 20 years,” says Andrew Foley, a ranger with the National Trust...

Again from the BBC article:

Soil tests show the horse has been there since between 1200 BC and 800 BC. There are plenty of legends associated with both the figure and with nearby Dragon Hill. There have even been suggestions the horse is in fact a dragon.

One tale is that King Arthur will one day wake when England is in peril. When Arthur rouses (although legend has it he fought against the English, so it would seem unlikely), the Uffington horse will rise up and dance on Dragon Hill. 

But the horse is also linked to King Alfred the Great, who battled the Danish invaders who looted and destroyed the monasteries with their libraries, book copying monks, and schools which were keeping ancient knowledge alive (King Alfred encouraged scholarship in his people to keep civilization alive, hence the name "Great"). 

For winning battles, even battles against barbarians who loot and burn and destroy, is not enough: One needs to keep the wisdom of the past alive so one can rebuild civilization. And in Alfred's time, that mean monasteries that not only cared for the sick and helped the poor, but had schools to teach students, and make copies of the books so more could read them. King Alfred, who spoke Latin enough to (reportedly) translate Boethius' great work, nevertheless arranged this and other great books to be translated into the Anglo Saxon language for those unschooled in Latin.

the legend of King Alfred's fight against the maurading Vikings inspired a famous poem about King Alfred,  by GKChesterton: The Ballad of the White Horse.

as this Lecture  points out:

The Last Great Epic Poem in the English Language Chesterton may have considered The Ballad of the White Horse his greatest literary accomplishment...
The Ballad is the story of the English King Alfred, who fought the Danes in the year 878. But it is also the story of Christianity battling against the destructive forces of nihilism and heathenism, which is the battle we are still fighting.

 At the beginning of the poem, the Blessed Virgin appears to King Alfred, and he asks her if he is going to win the upcoming battle. Her reply is not what he expects: 

          "I tell you naught for your comfort,
          Yea, naught for your desire,
          Save that the sky grows darker yet
          And the sea rises higher.

          "Night shall be thrice night over you,
          And heaven an iron cope.
          Do you have joy without a cause,
          Yea, faith without a hope?"

hmmm... as the lecture points out: the battle is still being fought today as the modern barbarians seek to level all links to the past, in the name of a multiculturalism that has little to do with respecting other cultures as it does with letting them be the ruler of a society without roots.