Hearth’s Warming Eve is one of my favourite episodes of My Little Pony. In it, we watch a play performed by the mane six which tells the story of the founding of Equestria. (The episode itself is a blatant attempt to make a politically-correct non-denominational Christmas-themed episode, but it’s a damned good one.)
How literally should we take the story as told in the episode? Personally, I err on the side of viewing it as a postmodern interpretation of the story, probably quite different from the Equestrian history, but which tells the story effectively nonetheless.
There are multiple reasons I think this. Firstly, did the personalities of the rulers of the three tribes really reflect those of the actors playing them so well? Is it even known what the names and natures of the leaders were, with the thousands of years that have passed since the events told? It’s possible — Twilight hinted at this when she said “We should be so honored that Princess Celestia chose us [to perform the pageant]! She must really think we exemplify what good friends are!” It’s possible that Celestia noted the similarities in the mane six’s personalities to the leaders and cast them in their respective roles for that reason.
Given the similarities though, and especially the choice of names for the characters (Pinkie Pie is Chancellor Puddinghead, for instance!), I’m inclined to think the play was probably largely improvised based on the story the ponies all knew since watching such pageants as fillies.
Another reason to believe the play might not be entirely accurate is that, in the real world, the Christmas nativity story as told in most plays is inaccurate. Most of them show the magi arriving on the same night as Christ’s birth, for instance, but we’ve known for many years that they didn’t actually show up until the Feast of the Epiphany. There are likely similar mis-tellings in the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant.
For instance, were there really only two ponies from each tribe — the leader and an assistant of some kind — who went off to find a new land? It would make more sense for everyone to up sticks at once. Having made that interpretation, one can ask: Did they really all find shelter in the same cave?
Perhaps they didn’t leave to find a new land at all, and the discovery that the blizzard was caused by windigos was while they were still in their original lands? (Further evidence to support this theory is that we don’t know what happened to the land that they supposedly abandoned.)
I don’t know what parts of the story to take as canonical Equestrian history and which not. But I do think the story as told in Hearth’s Warming Eve should be taken with a healthy pinch of salt.