398 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



his feet broad-hoofed and slender ; long and curly are his mane 

 and tail. Down his broad forehead hang heavy curls of hair." 

 " That was the one chariot which the host of the horses of the 

 chariots of Ulster could not follow on account of the swiftness 

 and speed of the chariot and of the chariot-chief who sat in it." 

 The horses were guided by " two firm-plaited yellow reins," 

 which shows that only a single rein was used for the pair. 



From the results obtained in our previous investigations the 

 reader will at once see that Cuchulainn's horses were well bred, 

 the result of crossing the European-Asiatic horse with Libyan 

 blood, as horses of grey and black have been proved to be, 

 whether found among the Turcomans of Central Asia, in Asia 

 Minor, Mesopotamia, Syria, Nubia, the Barbary States, Spain, 

 or France. How came this breed into Ireland ? When we 

 remember that we traced the black horse of Ariege through 

 Auvergne, Central France, along the Loire to Brittany, and 

 when we remember that so great an authority as M. Sanson 

 holds that there is a close kinship between the Breton pony 

 and the ponies of Ireland and Great Britain, and when it is 

 likewise borne in mind that all authorities are agreed in de- 

 riving the pedigree of the horses of Ariege, Auvergne, Morvan, 

 and the Breton ponies from an ' Oriental,' i.e. Libyan, origin, 

 there is at once a strong presumption that Cuchulainn's black 

 steed was of Spanish or Gaulish blood. Again, when we 

 remember that the little horses of Provence, which are grey in 

 colour, are held by the best French authorities to be derived 

 from Libyan blood at least a century before our era, and we 

 also consider the fact that the Percheron, the most famous 

 half-bred horse of France, is thought to have been already in 

 the valley of the Seine from an early period, it seems equally 

 probable that Cuchulainn's grey steed was also derived from 

 either Northern Spain or Gaul. A recent discovery confirms 

 this argument. In 1903 Mr G. Coffey ^ found in the centre of 

 a small tumulus near Loughrea, co. Galway, a cremated burial 

 " on the level of the old surface of the ground. It rested on 

 a rude block of stone, and consisted of an almost plain urn 



^ Proc. Roy. Irish Acad. Vol. xxv. sec. C, no. 2, p. 14. 



