"Even normally well-behaved horses can become chaotic under such circumstances."
There's an Irish song that uses this pretty common folk motif (here transformed into action)

grá geal mo croí.’
This tender young maiden fell down on her knees,
Saying, ‘Father, dear father, do as you please.
And if by wild horses, I strangled will be,
I’ll never deny he’s my grá geal mo croí.’

I've never really accepted that Buchan anything more than what many other collectors and anthologists were doing
I was one assured that "The Buchan Controversy was done and dusted" which is far from the case
I believe that there is still a great deal we have yet to find out about the ballads and their place in social and literary history - they were certainly important to those who sang them
I've just been examining a bundle of the rarest examples that were taken from Ireland to America by Famine refugees at a time when you'd think they had more important things of their mind
Jim Carroll