I recently stumbled upon a reference to the helhest, a "three-legged horse associated with Hel". Unfortunately, searching for more information on about this fascinating legend didn't turn up much.
Obviously, the most distinctive characteristic of the creature is having three legs and I'm hoping there's a story or stories explaining how that came to be. Is there?
The "story" is that the Danes did not want to put their dead into the ground first, so they would take the leg of the horse and throw it in the hole first. An offering? To appease some otherworldy debt? The horse would then be useless, so it would be sacrificed. Helhest (and other pale horses associated with death like Mari Lywd) is what became the "pale horse" in Christian culture.
The helhest, in Danish folklore, is essentially the ghost of a horse sacrifice that was made when a new cemetery was consecrated. It was considered bad luck to be the first one to be buried in a cemetery. The horse would be buried with one of its legs cut off to prevent it from escaping. In Sweden a related creature is called the kyrkogrim.
