During one point in the play Riders to The Sea, Maurya appears to be having a vision and sees two of her sons on horseback. One of them has been dead for some time and the other is Patch, presumed dead.

The two brothers seem to be racing in some sort of otherworldly Triple Crown race or, to make a pun, the Irish race.

A literal reading of the ghostly ride isn't likely. Perhaps they were riding as if the demons were chasing them.

Celtic Myths by Miranda Jane Green has this to say about the goddess Epona, "Her imagery is distinctive: she is always depicted in company with horses, either riding side-saddle on a mare or between two or more horses or ponies" (60).

Since Epona is described as riding between two ponies, could it be interpreted that she was riding between the two sons? Synge may have alluded to this goddess as if she were between the sons’ horses in a figurative sense. Then again, those two horses may have appeared to be an eight-legged horse like Odin's Sleipnir from a distance, especially if one had been having a pint, as they say, and viewed from ground level, which would explain why two heads were not reported.

Elements of the Wild Hunt, the Green Man, and Herne the Hunter are suggested by these riders.

The horse as an element and symbol appears in both a literal and symbolic sense and is linked to various other cult symbols and practices. Always valued by man for its proverbial horse-sense and for its usefulness, the horse was also worshiped as a deity at times and used to play out mystical dramas. The Gaulish Celts worshiped the Mare Goddess, appearing in other cultures as Epona and associated with The Three Epona and the Triple Goddesses.

The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft describes one cult practice in twelfth-century Ireland involving a local king acting out a re-birth ritual in a "white mare ceremony". Afterward, the mare was slaughtered and eaten. We read of the culmination of the ceremony by the king. "He stood on an inauguration stone and received a straight white wand, which he held while turning three times left and three times right in honor of the trinity" (165).

There are other horse symbols in mythology.

The Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, edited by Maria Leach, adds further to our understanding, "The beginning of winter (Samhain) was the occasion for the lighting of bonfires and for processions from house to house to solicit contributions of coin and food. In County Cork, the procession was led by a man called the White Mare (Lair Bhan) wearing a white robe. The fairies and the spirits of the dead were supposed to be abroad" (202).

Standard Dictionary goes on to relate, "One of the oldest Irish sagas states that the barrows where the fairies dwelt were open about Samhain. According to Keating, in heathen times the druids on Ireland assembled to sacrifice to the gods and burn their victims on Samhain Eve. All other fires were extinguished to be rekindled only from that fire" (Leach, 968).

Another custom exemplifying the use of a symbolic figure of the horse to ensure fertility for the upcoming harvest was called the "horse dance".

Leech describes it in the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, "Ritual riding on a live horse or a hobby horse...at the grave of the goddess Talltiu in Taillten, Ireland, they race to give chthonic spirits an access of vigor for crop production" (504).

The question arises about the origin of the stick horses that children pretend to ride on. Sticks and horses are both elements in the play Riders to The Sea.

In all of these examples, we find a connection to festivals, the fairies, and horses.