He fell from exhaustion, and we made a litter with two poles and a horsecloth to carry him home.

On his back he was wearing what looked like a white horsecloth, but his sides were bright ginger and his rear almost orange.

In the poem Dunbar presents himself as an old, worn-out horse in need of a horsecloth to keep him warm during Yule.

Dunbar concludes by recording that, although he may not be treated like "chargers in silk trappings" he would be content with a new "horsecloth" to protect him against the Christmas cold.

He claims that, even if he were old, jaded cart-horse, put out to pasture in distant Strathnaver, he would still be given a horsecloth ("hous") and stall at Christmas.

The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the market-place, deliberating upon wandering towards those other places which had been mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a horsecloth.