Lightning in Mountains

Our first hint of the origins of the Denki-ba or "electric horses", comes from this scroll fragment titled "Lightning in Mountains" which is a copy of an ancient painting attributed to a wandering scholar. The accompanying story goes that the scholar, while painting a landscape on silk, was suddenly granted a vision of a herd of "celestial horses". Amazed by the creatures, which seemed to be, "made of lighting and white fire", he did his best to capture their form and bright colors, using his half-finished landscape as a canvas and hastily painting over his earlier work.

Modern scholars estimate the age of this fragment as hailing from the Six Dynasties period of Chinese history (220-589), but since it is a copy of an earlier work lost to age and time, the actual date of the sighting of these rare creatures is still a matter of debate.

What is not in question is that the descendants of these animals exist in our modern era and some of them choose to live with humans.

It is also conjectured that the stallion at the top of the painting may be "Denki no Mikoto", the wandering god of lightning and founder of the breed.

Denki-ba breed sheet


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Brushmarker outlines scanned into PSP and finished digitally. Background painting is purely digital, also done with PSP.