way that if the fighting men are pressed by the multitude of the enemy, they may have a ready retreat to their own men. In this way they exhibit the quickness of cavalry and the steadiness of infantry in battle, and such is their power from daily practice and exercise, that they are wont to check their horses at full gallop on a steep downward slope, and guide and turn them within the narrowest space. They run along the pole and stand on the yoke, and betake themselves from there into the chariots with the greatest rapidity’ (Gallic War, Bk. IV. ch. xxxiii.). The terror inspired by the Celtic chariots, their furious onsets, accompanied by whoopings and songs, the shaking of their shields above their heads, and the brandishing of their weapons, is commented on by several Roman historians (see Livy, Bk. XXI. ch. xxviii.; Tacitus, Life of Agricola, ch. xxxvi.; ibid., ch. xii).
We turn to the Irish tales, confining our parallels to the single account given of Cuchulain’s scythed chariot in the Táin Bó Cualnge (Windisch’s edition, p. 352, l. 2525, et seq.; O’Grady in Hull’s Cuchullin Saga, pp. 174-176).
The scythed chariot seems only to have been used on occasions of special importance, and it was at a moment of urgency that Cuchulain said to Laegh, his charioteer, ‘ “O my tutor Laegh, canst thou tackle for us the scythed chariot—that is, if thou hast with thee the equipment and gear of the same?” Then Laegh arose, and put on his charioteer’s accoutrement, and he threw over the horses their iron coats of mail, adorned with gold, which covered them from the forehead down to the tail, defended with little blades, little spikes, little lances, and hard-pointed spears; so that every movement of the chariot brought a spike near to one, so that every corner, every face, every point, every side of this chariot was a path of laceration for the flesh. . . . Then sprang Cuchulain of the weapon-feats into the scythed chariot, with its iron syckles, with its thin-edged knives, with its hooks, its hard spit-spikes, its hero’s weapons, its contrivances for opening, its sharp nails that studded its axles and straps, and its curved sides and tackle. Then he delivered his thunder-feat of a hundred, of two
