Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/84

Rh as hard as a horse’s mane. Some of them shave their beards; others let them grow a little. Persons of quality shave their chins close, but their mustachios they let fall low, so that they even cover their mouths. . . . At meal time they all sit, not upon seats, but upon the ground, and instead of carpets, they spread wolves or dog’s skins under them (cf. Strabo, Bk. IV., ch. iv. § 3). Young boys and girls, mere children, attend them. Near at hand they have their chimneys, with the fire well furnished with pots and spits full of whole joints of flesh meat; and the best and fairest joints (by way of due honour and regard), they set before persons of high quality. . ..

‘They likewise invite strangers to their feasts, and after all is over, they ask who they are, and what is their business.

‘In the very midst of feasting, upon any small occasion, it is ordinary for them to rise, without any regard of their lives, to fall to with their swords. For the opinion of Pythagoras prevails much amongst them, that men’s souls are immortal, and that there is a transmigration of them into other bodies, and after a certain time they live again.

‘In their journeys and fights they use chariots drawn with two horses, which carry a charioteer and a soldier, and when they meet horsemen in the battle, they fall upon their enemies with their saunians (a kind of dart), then, quitting their chariots, they fall to with their swords.

‘There are some of them that so despise death, that they will fight naked, with only a cloth about their loins. . . . When the army is drawn up in battle-array, it is usual for some of them to step out before the army, and to challenge the stoutest of the enemy to single combat, brandishing their arms to terrify their adversary. If any comes forth to fight with them, they sing some song in commendation of the valiant acts of their ancestors, and blazon out their own praises; on the contrary they vilify their adversary, with slighting and contemptuous words, as if he had not the least courage. When at any time they cut off their enemies’ heads they hang them about the necks of their horses.