The Courtship of Ferb (Tochmarc Ferbe)

* * # * *

HERE we show how the third troop was equipped — even the troop wherein Mani was. Fifty chestnut horses were in it — they were big- of body and of wondrous size — also fifty white horses with chestnut ears — their tails were long, and the manes and the tails were dyed to the colour of purple. On each horse was a bridle of two reins, shells of gold ornamented one of the reins and shells of silver were on the other. The bits of them all were of gold and of silver. At the neck of each horse hung a round plate of gold, to which little bells had been fastened, and the bells, as they swung to the horses’ tread, chimed together in music as sweetly as lute strings struck by a master’s hand. Each pair of horses was yoked to a chariot of white bronze, whose rim was made of silver and gold; fifty caparisons of purple, with threads of silver run through them, were bound to the bodies of the chariots: they had golden buckles to fasten them, and hung over the rims, marvellous figures were embroidered thereon. Fifty graceful youths with fair countenances stood in these fifty chariots; amongst them there was none who was not the son of a king and a queen, and of a hero and warrior of Connaught. They were clothed in fifty purple cloaks, whose borders were adorned with silver and gold; there were four bronze ears on every cloak, and each was fastened with a clasp of red gold purified in the fire. Close fitting garments, woven with silk, and with fastenings of glowing yellow gold, were girded on their white bodies. Fifty silver bucklers for the fight hung on their backs, the rims of the bucklers were of gold, and they were adorned with many kinds of carbuncles and with costly stones of every colour. Two gleams of valour shone from the five-pointed spears that were in the hand of each man of them; there were fifty rivets of white bronze and of gold upon every spear. If from each of these heroes a bushel of gold had been due, the rivets of his lance had been enough for the full payment of the debt. Each of the spears had about it rings of gold purified in the fire, and rested on a socket of carbuncles, which, in like fashion to the spears, had been embellished with many coloured costly stones. They shone in the night like the beams of the sun. At their belts hung fifty long swords; the hilts of the swords were of tooth, adorned with gold and with silver; the scabbards were of white silver. In their hands were fifty whips of white bronze with clasps of gold upon them.