Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 401 



The very accurate knowledge of the geography of Ireland 

 shown by Ptolemy (120 A.D.), puts it beyond doubt that traders 

 from Britain and the Continent frequented the mouths of the 

 Irish rivers in the first century after Christ. It is thus possible 

 that before the beginning of our era the Irish had obtained 

 some horses superior to those which they were then using, the 

 latter being doubtless similar to those diminutive animals, 

 still used, as we have seen, by the tribes of northern Britain to 

 draw their war chariots at least two centuries after the Roman 

 conquest. 



There is no doubt that the trade between Gaul and Ireland 

 and the British Isles in the first century B.C. was almost 

 entirely in the hands of the Veneti, a tribe of Armorica 

 (Brittany), who excelled in shipbuilding and seacraft, and whom 

 Caesar had great difficulty in reducing to subjection 1 . They 

 seem to have had the complete control of the Channel, and, 

 as I have shown elsewhere 2 , it was these people who were 

 carrying on the tin trade between Cornwall, the Isle of Wight, 

 and the mouth of the Loire when Pytheas of Marseilles made 

 his memorable voyage into our northern seas about 350 B.C., 

 and it was probably the same people who gave the Britons 

 of Kent the news that Julius Caesar was preparing to invade 

 their island home. 



But, as it was probably to the mouth of the Loire that 

 St Patrick sailed in company with the wolf-hounds, in the 

 fifth century A.D., and as it was to the same haven that the 

 tin of Cornwall was carried when Posidonius visited Britain 

 about 90 B.C., it is exceedingly probable that it also was the 

 port for the trade between Ireland and France at the time 

 when the Cuchulainn Saga first took shape. But as, according 

 to Sanson, the Breton pony, so similar to the ponies of Britain 

 and Ireland, was already in Brittany before Roman times, and 

 as we have proved the Libyan origin of that animal, it is 

 highly probable that superior horses of Libyan blood, such 

 as those of Cuchulainn, were imported into Ireland from 

 Brittany. We have thus a satisfactory explanation of the origin 



1 B. G., v. 8. 1. 



2 Kidgeway, ' Greek Trade Routes to Britain,' Folklore Jour. Vol. i. 



R. H. 26 



