396 



THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC 



[CH. 



the earlier round shields used in Ireland (Fig. 118), and from 

 the round shields used by the Irish at a later period, such as that 

 still in the possession of the O'Donovan (Fig. 119). Similarly, 

 brooches of undoubted La Tene or ' late Celtic ' types have 



Fig. 116. Brouze Fibula; Irelaudi. 



occasionally been found in Ireland (Fig. 116), and this type 

 of brooch is undoubtedly described in at least one passage of 

 the Cuchulainn Saga, where Cuscraid son of Conchobar, the 

 tall, yellow-haired, grey-eyed king of Ulster, is represented as 

 wearing a dark-grey cloak fastened round him with " a leaf- 

 shaped brooch {delg nduillech) of white metal 

 over his breast ^" This epithet exactly fits 

 such a brooch as that here figured from 

 Navan Rath, co. Armagh (Fig. 116), but 

 could not possibly be applied to the pen- 

 anular (Fig. 117) brooches used in Ireland 

 at a later period, and the genesis of which 

 I have elsewhere traced''. As leaf-shaped 

 brooches closely allied to the Irish brooch 

 here shown, were in use by the Belgic tribes 

 of East Anglia at the time of the Roman 

 conquest of Britain'*, there are good grounds 

 for believing that the poems of the Cuchu- 

 lainn cycle took shape in the period in 

 which are laid the scenes described. 

 Iron swords of the La Tene type have been discovered in 

 Ireland ^ 



^ Ridgeway, oj). cit. Vol. i. p. 464. 



- The Cattle Raid of Cualnge, translated by L. Winifred Faraday, M.A. 

 (1904), p. 120; Yellow Book of Lecan, fol. 46 b, 28. 



3 The Early Age of Greece, Vol. i. pp. 589 sqq., Figs. 146—152, 



4 Ibid., p. 581, Fig. 131. 



5 E. Munro, The Lake-dieellings of Europe, pp. 382-4. 



Fig. 117. Bronze 

 Fibula ; Ireland. 



