Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 393 



alone are sufficient to indicate that horses of the North African 

 type or saturated with North African blood had reached Ireland 

 at a very early period. It is even possible to find some evidence 

 of a far earlier date which has a direct bearing on the origin of 

 the horses whose skulls have been preserved in the peat-buried 

 crannog. 



I have already pointed out (p. 98) that in the oldest Irish 

 Epic cycle that of Cuchulainn the combatants never ride on 

 horseback, but always fight from chariots, whereas the reverse 

 is the case in the poems of the later or Ossianic cycle, as was 

 apparently the established practice when the Book of Kells was 

 written. Of course various dates have been assigned by scholars 

 to the Cuchulainn Saga, but though it may have been revised 

 and augmented at a later period the main elements in the poems 

 belong to pagan times. The events commemorated in these 

 poems are supposed to have taken place in the first century 

 before Christ, and even though it may not be admitted that 

 they were first composed at so early a date it will be generally 

 conceded that the main body of the poems was composed in 

 pre-Christian times, for there is good evidence that some of 

 them were already regarded as of great antiquity in the seventh 

 century A.D. 



In The Wooing of Emer (who lived at Lusk in co. Dublin) 

 we are told that Cuchulainn went to Alba, i.e. Albion, to perfect 

 himself in feats of arms, and that he learned there the use of 

 the scythed chariot, and in such a chariot he set out to see Emer, 

 after his return from Alba. When Caesar invaded Britain in 

 55 B.C. he found the Belgic tribes still using chariots, although 

 they also possessed cavalry, whilst for a considerable period 

 later the tribes of the north of Britain continued to use chariots, 

 as we have already seen (p. 95). But it seems most unlikely 

 that they continued to do so for very long after the Roman 

 Conquest. It is not very probable that the use of the chariot 

 for war would have continued in Ireland very long after it had 

 been replaced by men mounted on horseback in Britain. 



Though this is not the place to deal in detail with the 

 armature and dress described in the poems, it may however 

 be pointed out that both dress and arms seem to belong to 



