It is contained in the Book of the Dun Cow story called the “Phantom Chariot”. Footnote 210: See chap. XX—“The Victories of Light over Darkness”. Footnote 211: Pronounced _Conla_. Footnote 212: A kind of mystic prohibition or taboo; singular, _geis_. Footnote 213: Now called Dundalk. Footnote 214: Pronounced _Lewy_. Footnote 215: Pronounced _Glen na Mower_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIII SOME GAELIC LOVE-STORIES The heroic age of Ireland was not, however, the mere orgy of battle which one might assume from the previous chapter. It had room for its Helen and its Andromache as well as for its Achilles and its Hector. Its champions could find time to make love as well as war. More than this, the legends of their courtships often have a romantic beauty found in no other early literature. The women have free scope of choice, and claim the respect of their wooers. Indeed, it has been pointed out that the mythical stories of the Celts must have created the chivalrous romances of mediæval Europe. In them, and in no other previous literature, do we find such knightly treatment of an enemy as we see in the story of Cuchulainn and Ferdiad, or such poetic delicacy towards a woman as is displayed in the wooing of Emer.[216] The talk between man and maid when Cuchulainn comes in his chariot to pay his suit to Emer at Forgall’s _dún_ might, save for its strangeness, almost have come out of some quite modern romance. “Emer lifted up her lovely face and recognised Cuchulainn, and she said, ‘May God make smooth the path before you!’ “‘And you,’ he said, ‘may you be safe from every harm.’” She asks him whence he has come, and he tells her. Then he questions her about herself.