Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/132

 And there likewise by all that description, you may see the very fashion and manner of the Irish horseman most truely set forth, in his long hose, hisryding shooes of costly cordwaine, his hacqueton, and his haberjeon, with all the rest thereunto belonging.

Eudox. I surely thought that the manner had beene Irish, for it is farre differing from that we have now, as also all the furniture of his horse, his strong brasse bit, his slyding reynes, his shanke pillion without stirruppes, his manner of mounting, his fashion of ryding, his charging of his speare aloft above head, the forme of his speare.

Iren. No sure; they be native English, and brought in by the Englishmen first into Ireland: neither is the same accounted an uncomely manner of ryding; for I have heard some great warriours say, that, in all the services which they had seene abroad in forraigne countreyes, they never saw a more comely man thei. the Irish man, nor that commeth on more bravely in his charge; neither is his manner of mounting unseemely, though hee lacke stirruppes, but more ready then with stirruppes; for, in his getting up, his horse is still going, whereby hee gayneth way. And therefore the stirrup was called so in scorne, as it were a stay to get up, being derived of the old English word sty, which, is, to get up, or mounte.