Alfabeto Ogham

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET

Author(s): Charles Graves and C. LIMERICK


Source: Hermathena, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1876), pp. 443-472
Published by: Trinity College Dublin
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23036451
Accessed: 22-06-2016 19:44 UTC

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443

THE OGHAM ALPHABET.

AN animated controversy
of the Round respecting
Towers was carried onthe
forage andyears
many uses
amongst Irish antiquaries. Believed by some to be the
work of a highly-civilised but pagan race, who erected them
in pre-historic times, either to serve as fire temples, or as
emblems of a less pure form of oriental worship, they were
referred by others to a much later period, and had a very
different purpose ascribed to them. The antiquaries who
have most carefully studied the general history of archi
tecture, and the ancient documents of various kinds which
exist in the Irish language, have come to the conclusion
that these structures belong to the Christian period, and
were used as belfries in connexion with Christian churches;
nay, even that some of them were built only about a thou
sand years ago. It would almost seem as if a national
spirit had been introduced into the discussion of this ques
tion, and those scholars who denied the great antiquity
and pagan origin of the Round Towers were believed to
take an unpatriotic part in abandoning the claims of their
country to the possession of a high degree of civilisation
when all the other nations of western Europe were sunk in
barbarism. Upon that subject it is not improbable that
additional light may be thrown when further progress shall
have been made in the publication of the ancient Irish
laws, poems, romances, lives of saints, and treatises
of all kinds which* still remain uncopied and untrans
lated in our libraries. But the discussion is no longer
carried on with any activity. Those who assert the compa
2 G 2

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TEE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

ratively recent origin and Christian character of the Round


Towers are satisfied with the arguments by which those
conclusions have been maintained; they accept, in the
main, the results put before the world in Dr. Petrie's
celebrated essay; and give up in despair the attempt to
convince opponents who are disposed to indulge in romantic
conjecture, rather than to follow the leadings of matter of
fact and common sense.
But there is another question of the same kind which
has been debated in somewhat the same spirit, and has
not yet been brought so near to a settlement—the question
as to the age and nature of the inscriptions which exist
in the Ogham character. More than eighty years ago
General Vallancey discussed it in his Collectanea, heaping
about it a mass of irrelevant and inaccurate oriental learn
ing, and adding to the difficulties of its treatment by
incorrect delineations of the inscribed monuments. His
mode of dealing with the subject seems to have checked
rather than promoted the inquiry of scholars. It brought,
in fact, discredit upon a department of Irish archaeology
which deserved the most careful attention, because it
touched upon the history of letters, and therefore upon the
nature of the civilisation which existed in Ireland in
remote ages.
From the unmerited neglect into which this study fell,,
and in which it remained for half a century, various cir
cumstances combined to raise it. Under the direction of

Sir Thomas Larcom, the officers employed in the arch


aeological department of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland
made drawings of all the Ogham monuments at that time
known to exist. A considerable mass of valuable informa
tion was thus gradually collected and rendered accessible.
About the same time, Mr. Windele and other members of
a learned society in Cork, devoted themselves zealously to
the search after Ogham inscriptions, carrying on system

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 445

atic explorations, both above and under ground, with the


view to the discovery of them. Their labours were re
warded with a considerable success, of which they made
-a judicious use, by presenting several of the monuments
which they found to the Royal Institution of Cork,
where they might be examined by antiquaries, and excite
an interest even in the minds of those who could not fully
estimate their importance. Had this been done at an earlier
period and in other public museums, we should not have
had reason to lament, as we now do, the destruction of
scores of Ogham monuments ruthlessly defaced by igno
rant persons who had no notion that they bore inscriptions
of any kind. It must be admitted that the efforts made
by some recent antiquaries to decipher and translate the
Ogham inscriptions have not been by any means success
ful, though they had ampler materials to work upon, and
the means of obtaining better philological guidance.
Expecting to find in the inscriptions what they did not
contain, they tried to elicit their meaning by resolving the
legends into elements, generally monosyllabic, which were
put together by the translators with a regard to their sup
posed radical signification, but without any attention to
orthography or syntax. Thus inscriptions, which merely
•exhibited a proper name in the genitive case, accompanied
by a patronymic, were made to record the manner in which
some ancient hero had come by his death; and some were
actually read upside down. Failures such as these led
Dr. Petrie, Dr. Todd, Dr. O'Donovan, and other Irish anti
quaries to suspect that the key to the Ogham given in the
grammars was not the true one, and that it would therefore
be expedient to subject the inscriptions to an a priori pro
cess of deciphering analysis. This task was undertaken
by the writer of this paper, at the request of Sir Thomas
Larcom, who supplied him with tracings or copies of all
the drawings of Oghams in the Ordnance Survey collection.

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446 TEE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

Assuming that the character was alphabetic, he constructed,,


on the basis of the oldest Irish writings and inscriptions,
tables indicating not only the frequency of recurrence, but
the tendency of the letters to combine with one another.
The Ogham inscriptions were tabulated in the same way,
and the two tables so 'constructed were compared. The
result of the comparison was to make it at once obvious
that the old key was the right one, and therefore that the
blame of failing to explain the inscriptions rested with
those who had hitherto undertaken to read and translate
them.

But in spite of difficulties and failures, great progress


has been made in this branch of Irish archaeology within
the last thirty or forty years. It has been studied in a
more scientific spirit; and the appliances necessary for the .
prosecution of the study have been largely increased. The
Royal Irish Academy has been the centre of activity in this
department. There, owing chiefly to the energetic and
judicious efforts made by Dr. Ferguson, a large collection
of inscribed monuments has been made; and facilities for
the study of the inscriptions have been afforded by the pro
cess of making paper moulds of inscriptions remaining
in other parts of the country. In Kilkenny also a lapidary
museum has been established, and the pages of the Journal
of the Archaeological Association of Ireland, as well as the
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, bear witness to
the interest with which the study of the Ogham has been
for some time regarded. Within the period spoken of,
many Ogham inscriptions have been discovered, at least
doubling the number of those with which we were pre
viously acquainted.
These researches and labours have materially affected
the views entertained by antiquaries with respect to the
age and nature of the inscriptions. On the one hand, the
position of those persons has become untenable, who

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 447

asserted that all Ogham monuments were essentially pagan,


recording the burial of pagans, and inscribed before the
commencement of the Christian era. Such views could no
longer be treated with respect, when we were in possession
of scores of inscriptions bearing Christian crosses, or ex
hibiting names the form of which -marked them as indis
putably belonging to the Christian period. At first,
indeed, a desperate effort was made to show that these
crosses were pagan emblems—forms of Thor's hammer—or
that if they were Christian crosses, they were of a later
date than the inscriptions which appeared alongside of
them ; in fact, that they had been added by way of Chris
tianising pagan gravestones. But a careful and candid
examination of the monuments established the certainty of
the conclusion that the crosses were of the same date as
the inscriptions : nay, even in some cases it appeared that
if there were any difference, the crosses were older rather
than more recent. Latin names and words, written both
in Latin and in Ogham characters, were also found upon
the monuments, nay, even inscriptions both biliteral and
bilingual, exhibiting equivalent legends in the two kinds
of character.
The extreme pagan theory could no longer be main
tained.
On the other hand, the theory of the extreme sceptical
school, who asserted that the Ogham was a recent inven
tion, was now proved to be equally unfounded. Monu
ments were discovered, the legends of which carry us back
to an age much earlier than that commonly called the
mediaeval: whilst a few presented features suggesting the
notion that they belong to the period when paganism
and Christianity were existing side by side in this country.
There remain now but two opinions on this subject
which can be maintained with any show of reason. First,
there is the theory of those who believe that the Ogham

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448 THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

character, whether invented in Ireland, or brought hither


by Celtic colonists from their home in the far east, was in
use long before the Roman occupation of Britain, even
long before the Christian era ; and that it continued in use
in Christian times for several centuries. Some scholars
holding these opinions go so far as to speak of the Ogham
alphabet as a product of the most ancient Celtic civiliza
tion, as nothing less than a faint and distant echo of the
arrow-headed characters used in Babylon; and they re
pudiate the notion of the Ogham being derived from, or in
any way dependent on, Greek, Italian, or Scandinavian
alphabets.
Again, there is the conflicting theory of those who hold
that the Ogham was not contrived or brought into use
until after Ireland had felt the influences exercised by
the Roman civilisation and the introduction of Christianity.
According to them, its origin can hardly be looked for
before the fifth or sixth century of the Christian era. They
also maintain that it was originally cryptic in its character,
and invented by persons who were acquainted not only
with the Latin alphabet, but even with one of the fully
developed Runic Futhorcs, such as were in use amongst
the Anglo-Saxons.
In order to bring this controversy to a satisfactory
issue, a threefold inquiry must be instituted. We must
examine the actual nature of the Ogham alphabet itself,
so as to determine, if possible, by sifting the internal evi
dence which it affords, what relations it bears to other
alphabets, and what kind of ideas and knowledge existed
in the mind of the contriver of it. We ought also to dis
cuss the facts presented to us by the whole body of Ogham
inscriptions ; and to collect and weigh whatever testimony
can be gathered from ancient Irish documents with refer
ence to the use of this character.

But in order that this labour may be fruitful, it must be

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 449

definite; and therefore when we argue about Ogham it


must be understood that the object of discussion is the
Ogham Craobh as we find it described in the Book of
Oghams and the Uraicept, and exhibited on our monu
ments. The question is not concerning the use of letters
in general, or signs or hieroglyphics.of any kind employed
to express ideas, or record facts; we are dealing at pre
sent, as we have stated, merely with the Ogham Craobh.
Once we have ascertained its age, we shall be in a condi
tion to carry on the more general inquiry respecting the
use of letters in Ireland in remote times. In the present
paper, the writer proposes to treat of the nature of the
Ogham alphabet, hoping to be allowed on a future occasion
to lay before the readers of Hermathena some account
of the monuments and of the references to Ogham writing
contained in ancient Irish documents.

Two Irish treatises of great antiquity have come down


to us which furnish information respecting the Ogham cha
racter. One of these, which we shall call the Ogham Tract,
forms a part of the Book of Ballymote, a manuscript writ
ten near the end of the fourteenth century. This tract
cannot have been composed before the beginning of the
eighth century, inasmuch as it contains the name of Adam
nan (+ 704), the biographer of S. Columba; neither could
it be later than the beginning of the tenth century, seeing
that it is referred to by Cormac mac Cullenain (+ 909), who
quotes it in his Glossary, and explains several words which
occur in it. As, on the one hand, some time might be
supposed to elapse before the name of Adamnan was likely
to be introduced into an alphabetical list of saints, whilst
on the other there must have been a considerable interval
between the writing of the tract and of a glossary explain
ing difficult or obsolete terms occurring in it, we cannot
be far wrong in ascribing the composition of the Ogham
Tract to the early part of the ninth century. It is in all

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45° THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

probability a document more than a thousand years old>


and therefore entitled to respect as an ancient authority.
It will be found, moreover, to contain within it proofs that
the alphabet of which it treats was invented at a much
earlier period. There are in it instances of confusion and
inconsistency which indicate that the compiler was using
older materials, in dealing with which he experienced diffi
culty. From this it is to be inferred that we ought to be
prepared to encounter in the Ogham inscriptions peculia
rities of which the Ogham Tract furnishes no explanation,,
or which are more or less inconsistent with its statements.
This tract begins by stating that the Ogham was in
vented in Ireland by Ogma in the time of his brother
Breas, who, according to our Irish Annalists, was king of
Ireland in the time of the Tuatha De Danaan dynasty,
about nineteen centuries B.C. " Ogma," it is said, " was a
man very learned in language and in poetry. It was he
who invented the Ogham. The cause of its invention was
that he might prove his intelligence, and that it might be
a language peculiar to the learned, apart from the rustic and
the senseless The first thing written in Ogham was
a warning given to Lugh mac Ethlenn concerning his
wife. It was expressed by seven b's> [cut] on one rod of
birch—meaning, your wife will be carried away from you
seven times into a fairy hill, or some other land, if you do
not keep watch over her." It then proceeds to enumerate
the names of the Ogham characters, and to account for
their origin. To the question " whence the names of the
vowels and consonants of the Ogham," it gives the follow
ing answer : Secundum alios quidem, it was from the school
of poetry which Fenius Fearsaidh sent forth through the
world to learn the languages. There were five-and-twenty
of these students more distinguished than the rest, and it
was their names that were given to the letters of the Ogham
alphabet, both vowels and consonants; and there were

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 45i

seven of these iterurn still more famous; so that it was


their names that were given to the seven noble trees [the
vowels a, o, u, e, i, and the diphthongs ea, oi] ; and three
others were added to them, so that it was from them the
three remaining extra-trees were named; wherefore they
are set apart by themselves [viz., io, ui, ae]. Secundum alios
quidem, it was from the trees of the wood that names were
given to the letters of the Ogham, by a metaphor."
The tract, after offering explanations of the names of
the letters, presents us with what are called Verbal Oghams,
that is, secret modes of oral communication, effected by
substituting for each letter a periphrasis conveying some
idea closely connected with and likely to suggest its name.
For instance, as muin, the name of the letter m, signifies
the neck, it is represented in the verbal Ogham by the
phrase arusc n-airli'g (place of decapitation), or conair
go'ta (passage of the voice). These verbal Oghams, both
by the words and the grammatical forms occurring in
them, manifest their great antiquity. In other alphabets
intended to be employed in the same way the fall names of
persons, places, and things were used instead of their ini
tial letters. It seems hard to believe that such circumlo
cutory modes of speech could ever have been actually in
use ; still harder to imagine how they could have continued
in use for several centuries: and yet we find, as O'Dono
van has observed, a distinct reference to this mode of
speaking, in the following entry in the Annals of Clonmac
noise, as translated by Conall Mageoghegan, in the year
1627:—"A.D. 1328. Morish O'Gibelan, Master of Arts,
one exceeding well learned in the new and old laws, civille
and cannon, a cunning and skillfull philosopher, an excel
lent poet in Irish, an eloquent and exact speaker of the
speech which in Irish is called Ogham, and one that was
well seen in many other good sciences .... ended his life
this year." At the end of the Ogham Tract are given some

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452 THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

artifices of writing, such as putting an Ogham character to


stand for its name; and one curious example of the use of
Ogham in prognosticating the sex of an unborn infant.
The text of the tract is followed by a series of figures re
presenting different kinds of Oghams, or rather ciphers, to
be used in writing, including a variety of signs denoting
words or syllables. Some of these alphabets are named
after heroes of the legendary period ; and the list closes
with a Hebrew alphabet, two others professing to be Egyp
tian and African respectively ; and two veritable Futhorcs
of sixteen letters, with the Scandinavian names of the
Runes tolerably well spelt. One of these is called Ogam
loclanda'c, the other Gallogam. In the line immediately
preceding the former of these is an Ogham alphabet with
characters identical in form with Twig-Runes.
The other ancient treatise, which supplies information
respecting the Ogham character, is theUraicept naNeigeas
(Prsecepta doctorum), more recent by a century than the
Book of Oghams to which it makes reference. It appears
to have been recognised as the standard authority on
subjects connected with grammar, from the time it was
compiled down to a very recent period. Copies of it are
contained in the Book of Ballymote, the Book of Lecan,
and several other vellum MSS. It consists of four books,
the first attributed to Cenfaolad (+677), a man of whose
learning accounts have reached us in various ways. The
second book is ascribed to Ferceirtne, who is supposed to
have lived at the commencement of the Christian era; the
third to Amergin, the brother of Milesius; and the fourth
to Fenius Fearsaidh, who is said in the Irish legendary
history to have been King of Scythia, and also a professor
of languages, a generation or so before the Exodus of the
Israelites from Egypt. If this document were really what
it pretends to be, it would possess a marvellous interest.
But the student, on examining it, will be disappointed to

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 453

find that it is a clumsy fiction, or assemblage of fictions,


embodying no authentic information with respect to the
history of Irish letters, or the grammar of the Irish lan
guage. Such ideas of grammar as the authors were
masters of were derived from Priscian and Donatus, from
whom they frequently quote.
The Uraicept professes to give an account of the inven
tion not only of the Gaedhelic alphabet but even of the
Gaedhelic language. According to this authority, Fenius
Fearsaidh, being king in Scythia, and also a professor of the
three chief languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, journeyed,
in company with two other eminent professors, Iar the son
of Nema, and Gaedhel the son of Etheor, and a retinue of
seventy-two scholars, to the plain of Shinar, hoping to find
all the languages of the world in perfection at the place
where they had originated. Being disappointed in this
expectation, he sent out his scholars through the world, in
order that they might learn the various languages in the
countries where they were spoken. Their number was
exactly sufficient for this purpose, seeing that out of each of
the three primitive tongues twenty-four derived languages
were formed. During the absence of his scholars, which
lasted for seven years, Fenius provided them with food and
clothing; and remained himself in the neighbourhood of
the site of the Tower of Babel, giving instruction to the
various races of the world. When his scholars reassembled,
they exhibited the fruits of their labours, and requested
Fenius to form for them, by selection from all the various
languages, a language which should be intelligible to
themselves alone. Fenius complied with their request, and
framed for them the Gaedhelic language, which is more
expressive, lighter, smoother, and more copious, than any
other language. He supplemented the Gaedhelic by the
addition of five dialects, and furnished the means of writing
it by inventing the Bethluisnin. He had previously in

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vented the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin alphabets. But the


Ogham is the most perfect, because it was the last invented.
The writers of the Uraicept, for there are traces of the work
of several hands in the composition of this document, are
not agreed as to the part performed by Fenius in the inven
tion of the Irish language and alphabet. One commentator
intimates that the Gaedhelic language must have existed
before Fenius opened his philological school in the plain
of Shinar; his argument being that the tale of the seventy
two languages could not be made up without it. In another
place a commentator, perhaps the same acute critic, ob
serves that Fenius, who was learned in the three principal
languages, even before he went from the North, that is,
from Scythia, to the plain of Shinar, must have been
acquainted with the corresponding alphabets, inasmuch as
there " could not have been authors without alphabets."
Notwithstanding these discrepancies, the general purport
of the account which the Uraicept gives of the origin of
the Bethluisnin is to the effect that it was invented by
Fenius Fearsaidh. It is true that, in one of the copies of
the Uraicept, that, namely, which is preserved in the Book
of Lecan, we find a reference to a passage in the Irish
translation of Nennius, in which Ogma is spoken of as the
inventor of the letters of the Scots and of the names be
longing to them. This, however, is plainly an interpolation.
It does not appear in the older MS. of the Uraicept in the
Book of Ballymote; and it is at variance with the other
statements which concur in representing Fenius as the
originator of the Gaedhelic language and alphabet. In
this absurd legend of the great Celtic Regius Professor and
his school, there is, in all probability, no single element of
truth. It has been told here, almost in the words of the ori
ginal, for the purpose of enabling the reader to judge of the
value of the testimony of the Uraicept respecting the Ogham
character. The writer plainly knew nothing of its origin ;

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THE OGHAM. ALPHABET. 455

and invented this story, believing that it might be received


as credible by persons more ignorant than himself.
At the end of the Ogham Tract are given about
■eighty different forms of the alphabet, exhibiting various
fanciful modifications to which it was subjected. These
alphabets are obviously ciphers, meant to be unintelligible
except to the initiated. The following, which stands first,
appears to have been the original form of the Ogham :—

blfsn hdtcqmgngzr a o uei

From this the transition was easy to the form in which


It is commonly presented, viz.:

b 1 f s n hdtc q mgngz r aoue i

In fact all that was necessary was to make the stem-strokes


of the letters in the primitive alphabet continuous. The
Ogham in this form appears only as the sixteenth in order
amongst the ciphers figured in the Ogham Tract.
The next change made seems to have consisted in the
addition of characters denoting diphthongs:
ea oi ui ia ae

XObx*
of these, the two which stand for ea and oi, as may be col
lected from a passage in the Uraicept, were first added,
being probably suggested by, or intended to represent, the
diphthongs a and ce in the Latin alphabet. The last three
appear to have been occasionally employed in other ways.
Thus the symbol for ui was made to stand for y. The sym
bol for ia is said to have been also used for p; and we are

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456 TEE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

told that the symbol .for ae denoted likewise x, cc, ch, achy
and uch}
It has been the more necessary to set before the reader
this full account of the powers and forms of the letters in
the Ogham alphabet, inasmuch as errors have crept into
the statements which all the most eminent Irish antiqua
ries and grammarians have made respecting them. O'Fla
herty, Molloy, M'Curtin, Harris, Ledwich, and O'Connor,
not to mention Vallancey, Beaufort, and O'FIanagan, have
fallen into mistakes more or less likely to mislead. Some
modern writers have stated that p was denoted in Ogham
by a short stroke parallel to the stem-line. If this prac
tice was ever adopted, it was probably a recent contrivance,
resorted to by persons ignorant of the manner in which
the sound of that letter was represented by the ancient
Irish scribes. We learn from the Uraicept that the proper
mode of writing p was by b, seeing that p, as they pro
nounced it, was a softened b.
We are also presented in the modern Ogham alphabets
with a spiral character said to denote 2. This,» too, is an
invention growing, like the one just mentioned, out of ig
norance. The ancient Irish, when they had occasion to
write words containing the letter 2, substituted st or sd for
it. Thus in the Liber Hymnorum we find the names Eliza
beth and Zacharias spelt Elistabeth and Stacharias; and
in the copy of the Uraicept in the Book of Lecan, the name
of the Greek letter £ is written Steta. The fourteenth letter
of the Ogham alphabet was certainly intended to represent
2. But the Irish character employed in the manuscripts to
1 So far as the writer knows, the The fifth is used for x or sc in a note
third, fourth, and fifth diphthong sym written in the Ogham character in the
bols have not been found on any of the margin of the S. Gall MS. of Priscian,
monuments. The first is sometimes in the year 875 by the transcriber, who
used to denote p, as well as ea or eo. was an Irishman.
The second is of very rare occurrence.

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TEE OGEAM ALPEABET. 457

signify its power being somewhat like that which stands


for y, it was supposed to denote that letter. Others, again,
have taken it for x, contrary to all authority.
The Ogham, like all the Greek alphabet, is named after
its first two letters, Bethluis, or Bethluisnin. The latter
name seems to have given rise to the assertion that, in one
form of the ancient Irish alphabet, the letter n stood third.
There is nothing in the Uraicept to countenance this state
ment. On the other hand, there are passages in it which
show that the word nin was occasionally taken in a gene
ral signification, and used with reference to all the letters
of the alphabet indifferently.
The letters of the Bethluisnin are all called trees (feada);
but that name is applied in a special signification to the
vowels as being trees in the most proper sense. The con
sonants are termed side-trees (taob'omna); and the diph
thongs extra-trees (_forfeada). The continuous stem-line
along which the Ogham letters are ranged is termed the
ridge (druim); each short stroke, perpendicular or oblique
to it, is called a twig {fleasg). The form of the Ogham
characters indicates a division of the alphabet into groups
of five letters. Each group is named after its first letter.
Thus the letters b, I, f, s, n form the I group (aicme b); h, d,
t, c, q, the h group {aicme h); and so on. The diphthongs
Cforfeada) form a group named the foraicme.
One of the first things to be noticed in the Bethluisnin
is the separation of the vowels from the consonants. This
arrangement alone ought to have satisfied any scholar that
it was the work of a grammarian, and not a genuine pri
mitive alphabet. Again, the vowels are arranged accord
ing to the method of the Irish grammarians, who divided
them into two classes, the broad and the slender. The
broad «, o, u, are put first; the slender e, i, last. At what
ever time this distinction had its rise, it was not by any
means strictly observed by the earliest writers of this
VOL. II. 2 H

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458 THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

country. Frequent violations of it are to be found in the


orthography of the Irish passages in the Book of Armagh,
in the glosses in the S. Gall Priscian, and in the spelling of
names occurring in the most ancient inscriptions.
We have already observed that the letters of the Beth
luisnin were all called trees ; and not only so, but the names
of the respective letters are said to be the names of real
trees and plants. We meet with this statement in all ac
counts of the Bethluisnin, whether ancient or modern. It
will be found, however, to be incorrect. It holds good
only with respect to the names of some of the letters. Of
several others it can be shown with certainty that they are
not the names of trees or plants ; whilst of the remainder
we can only say that it is possible that they may have had
such a signification.
The names of the letters in the Bethluisnin are set
down in their order, and with interpretations, as follows :

b, leit, birch, r, ruis, elder.

I, luis, quicken. a, ailm, fir.

/. fearn, alder. o, onn, furze.


sail, sallow. u, ur, heath.

n, nin, ash. e, ea'dad, aspen.


h, huat, hawthorn. h i dad, yew.
d, duir, oak. ea, eafiad, aspen.
t> tinne, holly. oi, oir, spindletree.
c, coll, hazel. ui, uilleann, woodbine.
qoxcu, queirt, apple. ia, ifin, gooseberry.
m, muin, vine. ae, aviaricoll, double
g* gort, ivy. coll: as it is formed of

ngy ngetal, broom or two colls, :'s, or sets of


reed. four parallel strokes, laid
z or st, straif, blackthorn. one across the other.

Beit certainly means birch; Fearn, alder; Sail, sal

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 459

low; Duir, oak; and Coll, hazel. I'dad is mentioned in


the Brehon Laws as the name of a tree ; but distinguished
(perhaps through some blunder of the scribe) from ibur
{yew), and cri'tach (aspen), with one or other of which there
seems reason to identify it. I fin, or iphin, may be regarded
as the name of the gooseberry; for spin would, after the
Celtic mode of pronunciation, pass into ifin, as Spina gives
us the French epine. Ceirt may possibly be an obsolete
name for the apple-tree. Ruis may denote the privet, if
Rhys be the Welsh for that shrub. Ailm may be supposed
to stand for the palm, though that is not an Irish tree.
And Onn may have been the name of the ash in Irish, as
it was in Welsh and Breton. It is scarcely probable that
Luis was the old Gaelic name for the mountain ash, though
that is stated in the Treatise on Ogham and the Uraicept.
Caerthann is the received Irish name for that tree ; and the
names in the kindred Celtic languages are very similar.
As to the true meaning of n-getal, ea 'da'd, and eab'ad some
slight doubt may be entertained ; but it can be shown with
almost certainty of proof that nin, hudt, tinne, muin,
gort, straif, ur, oir, uillenn, and eman'coll, are not the Irish
names of trees or plants. This assertion with respect to
the meaning of the names of the letters in the Bethluisnin
must be taken for granted by our readers, because the proof
of it would require a more elaborate investigation than
could find a place in this article: and it ought not to be
disputed merely because it controverts the authority of all
Irish Dictionaries, Glossaries, and Grammars. In all of
these, the names of the letters have been set down, without
any expression of doubt, as the names of real trees, because
the compilers found the words so explained in the Treatise
on Oghams, the Uraicept, and other grammatical tracts, the
materials of which were derived from the same sources.
But it will not be easy to produce, from ancient writings of
a different kind, quotations to prove that those names
2 H 2

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460 the bishop of limerick on

belonged to real trees, respecting which we have asserted


the contrary.
It happens that we have preserved to us, in Irish manu
scripts, full and exact lists of the names of trees and plants :
because the Brehon Laws contained precise regulations as
to the graduated compensations to be paid for injuries done
to them. We also have ancient medical treatises, in Irish,
in which mention is made of many trees and plants em
ployed for medicinal purposes. The writers of the Ogham
Tract and the Uraicept, finding that the letters of the
Bethluisnin were collectively termed trees, and that the
names of some of the letters were actually the names of
real trees, might naturally have assumed that the names
of all were the names of real trees or plants. Whereas the
fact seems to have been that the letters were in the first
instance called trees, because of the virgular form of the
Ogham characters which represented them ; and that the
contriver of the Ogham, having begun by giving the names
of real trees to letters in his alphabet, was content to adopt
names of a different kind as soon as he came to the end of
the trees which had occurred to him as suitable for his
purpose.
It may not be easy to find the clew of thought which
led the contriver of the Ogham alphabet to arrange the
letters in the order which it exhibits. It is possible that
the process may have been purely arbitrary. It seems,
however, not improbable that he may have taken the fol
lowing course in grouping and arranging them. He may
have commenced by writing the twenty-three letters of the
Latin alphabet in the following form :—
A B C D
E F G H
I K L M
N O P Q
R S T V
X Y Z.

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 461

He might then proceed to exclude the letters which were


not in use in Irish, striking out K, P, X, and Y. That P
was not regarded as an Irish letter may be shown by the
authority of the Uraicept: ni bi p isin gaedilg. He might
then substitute Ng for P; that naso-palatal being an es
sential sound in the Celtic dialects. He might next trans
fer C into the place of the excluded K, as being equivalent
in sound; and promote Z from the bottom, where it was
standing by itself, to the top of the third vertical column.
His paradigm would then stand thus:—
A4 B1 Z3 D2
E4 F1 G3 H2
I4 C2 L1 M3
N1 O4 Ng3 Q
R3 S1 T2 V4.

The indices affixed to the letters in the last paradigm will


direct the reader's attention to the fact that each horizontal
line contains one letter out of each of the five aicmes in the
Beithluisnin. As the vowels constitute a group by them
selves, the alphabet-maker may have next selected them
to form a first aicme, and proceeded to group the other
aicmes, putting into them a letter out of each horizontal
line, and doing this either quite arbitrarily or for some
fanciful reason.2

This hypothesis as to the arrangement of the letters in


the Beithluisnin is not proposed as a thing that even ap
proaches to the certainty of demonstration. The most that
can be said of it is, that it accounts for the order in which
we find the letters, and does so in a simple way. It is
highly improbable that we shall ever be able to trace the

2 It is easy to see that a single change make the order of the indices 4, I, 3, 2
in the order of the letters both in the in all the lines, and would thus sepa
third and fourth horizontal lines, and rate the aicm.es, bringing each out into
-a double change in the fifth line, would a vertical column by itself.

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462 THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

connexion of the ideas which passed through the mind of


the alphabet-maker whilst he was constructing the Beith
luisnin. It was only a few years ago that Mr. Kaye showed
good reasons for believing that the letters of the Phoeni
cian alphabet were arranged in the order in which they
stand with a regard to phonetic principles; and no one, so
far as we are aware, has assigned any reason for the de
rangement of the letters in the Runic Futhorc. It is en
tirely consistent with what has been said as to the formation
of the original Ogham alphabet of twenty letters, to suppose
that the fifth group of five Ogham characters was an after
thought. It is not in symmetry with the remaining groups,
not being constructed, as it might have been, on the prin
ciple of making the characters in a group differ merely in
the number of strokes contained in each of them. It would
not have cost the original alphabet-maker much thinking
to devise a fifth group, consisting either of long strokes
crossing the stem-line at right angles, or of oblique strokes
sloping in a direction opposite to that in which the strokes
of the third aicme lean. Moreover, the purpose which this
supplemental group was intended to serve was plainly to
furnish the means of writing Latin words containing the
diphthongs JE and CE, and the consonants P, X, and Y,
which had been left Unrepresented in the original Ogham
alphabet of twenty letters.
There is scarcely any detail in the foregoing account of
the structure of the Ogham alphabet which does not indi
cate a close connexion between it and the Runic alphabets,
especially the later and more developed ones, such as were
used by the Angjo-Saxons, and were constructed by per
sons acquainted with the Roman letters.
The most important feature to be noticed is the division
of the Bethluisnin into groups, and the designation of each
letter by means of a character which denotes in the first
instance the number of the group, and next, the place that

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 463

the letter holds in that group. It is precisely upon this


principle that the Class-Runes are formed; and the very
signs used to represent one species of them, viz., the Tree
or Twig-Runes, are not only similar to, but even identical
with, some of the ciphers figured in the Book of Oghams.
Liljegren, in his Runlara, p. 50, gives the following
alphabet,

4s
f utho rchni a stbmlo

in which we recognise not only an exemplification of the


principle on which the Ogham alphabet is constructed, but
even a development of it in a form not unlike that of the
Ogham itself.
Professor Stephens, in his great work on Runes, gives
examples of this kind of Runic writing, of which the fol
lowing is a characteristic specimen. At the end of one of
the inscriptions at Maeshow, the Rune-graver has intro
duced his own name, /ERLIKR (./Erling), written in
these Twig-Runes thus :

evidently intending thereby to give a proof of his Runic


accomplishments by his use of a cipher; just as mediaeval
scribes were not unfrequently in the habit of writing in
Greek letters the colophons in which they recorded their
own names, and other circumstances connected with their
transcripts.
Runic writers had another way of constructing Crypt
Runes on the same principle. Choosing a letter written
once, twice, or thrice on one side to mark the number of
the class, they repeated it on the other side to denote the
■place of the letter in the class. The earliest written men
tion of these Class-Runes known to us is in the Alcuin

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464 THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

MSS. in St. Gall. This mode of writing is thus described


in the MSS.
" iis-runa dicuntur quae i littera per totum scribuntur,
ita ut quotus versus sit, primum brevioribus I, quae haec
littera sit in versu, longioribus i, scribatur. Ita ut nomen
corvi scribatur his litteris ita :

i. iiiiii in. iiiiiiii i. urn i. ii n. hi

" lagoruna dicuntur quae ita scribuntur per l. litteram, ut


nomen corvi:

r.rrrrrr rrr.rrrrrrrr r.rrrrr r.rr rr.rrr

" hahelruna dicuntur ista quae in sinistra parte quotus


versus ostendunt et in dextera quota littera ipsius versus
sit."
"PTfTT
" Soofruna dicuntur quae supra in punctis quotus sit ver
sus subtiliter ostendunt:

sed aliquando mixtim illas faciunt ut supra sint puncti


qui litteram signant et subtus ordo versus."
Thus the 6th stave of the ist class or row is C ; the 8th
of the 3rd is O ; the 5th of the 1st is R ; the 2nd of the 1st
is U; and the 3rd of the 2nd is I, the whole making CORYI,
the word required.
As the Alcuin MS. is of the ninth century, we may
safely assume that the method of writing by Class- or Tree
Runes was much older. Professor Stephens notices an
instance of their use on the Rok monument, which he as
cribes to the ninth century. Other Runic ciphers were
formed by repeating the initial letter of each of the three
groups (f, u, th, o, r, c) (h, n, i, a, s) (t, b, m, 1, o) a different
number of times, to denote each of the remaining letters in

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 465

that group. Thus the symbol for f written thrice stood for
th; two h's for n, and so on. Here again we have an in
stance of the application of the principle on which the
Ogham alphabet was framed.
It ought to be mentioned in this place, though we are
not yet able to bring the fact into relation with others
which bear upon our subject, that an Arabic collection of
alphabets, or more properly speaking, ciphers, by Ibn
Wahshiyah, translated by Von Hammer, contains two tree
shaped alphabets ; of which one is constructed on precisely
the same principle as the Ogham, and the forms of the
character are identically the same as those of the Twig
Runes. Ibn Wahshiyah names this " the alphabet of
Dioscorides the philosopher, commonly called the Tree
Alphabet. He wrote on trees, shrubs, and herbs, and of
their secret, useful, and noxious qualities in this alphabet,
used since in their books by different philosophers." This
work, which for a time possessed some authority, is now
proved to be a forgery. The greater number of the alpha
bets which it contains are merely fictitious ; and its pre
tended explanations of Egyptian hieroglyphics are all
found to be incorrect. But the work, apocryphal as it is,
was written in the ninth or tenth century: and it will be a
curious problem to account for the similarity between the
tree-alphabets represented in it and the Twig-Runes of
Scandinavia.
Perhaps the germ of the method of constructing the
Ogham alphabet was involved in the custom of denoting
the five vowels by points, numbering from one to five,
which had grown up at a very early period. From a single
group of five letters represented in this way, the alphabet
maker may have been led on to frame an entire alphabet,
consisting of four such groups.
In the tract De InventioneLinguarum, at the end of the
works of Hrabanus Maurus, we meet with an example of

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466 THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

this practice. In it the vowels in the words Incipit versus


Bonifacii Arch, gloriosique Martyr is are represented by
dots :—i by one ; a by two ; e by three ; o by four; and u
by five.
The author of the " Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique,"
(torn, iii., p. 508), referring to this, says, " Au moyen age
cet art [de cryptographie] devint a la mode. S. Boniface,
Archeveque & Martyr, passe pour 1'avoir porte d'Angleterre
en Allemagne."
The writer has observed other instances of this kind
of vowel cipher in Latin and Irish MSS. Professor Ste
phens notices that a Vienna MS., written towards the
close of the ninth century, gives, at the end of a Futhorc,
joints as signs of the vowels, viz., . for a ; : for e ; | for i ;
" for o; and "■) for u ; adding, " we must remember that
this is chiefly for fanciful or secret writing, just as their
manuscripts sometimes inform us how we may substitute
one letter for another, for the same purpose, or leave the
vowels out, and so on." We shall see that similar artifices
were practised in Ogham writing.
The connexion between Runes and Oghams is most
distinctly indicated by the fact that the Ogham is con
structed on the fundamental principle of the Tree-Runes.
But there are many instances of resemblance in matters
of detail, so close that, when they are considered collectively,
we are forced to regard them as the consequences of imi
tation.

The verbal Oghams, of which we have already made


mention, have their exact counterparts amongst the Runes.
The Skalds had periphrastic or poetical names by which
they designated the different Runes. Liljegren gives no
less than twenty-four such names for Sol (the sun), the
Rune which stands for the letter S. :—" The light of the
land," "the world flame," " the splendid sphere," "plea
sant shine," "Heaven's window," "Sister of the moon," &c.

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THE OGHAM. ALPHABET. 467

Again; the diphthongs were placed at the end of the


Ogham alphabet, as in the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc.
In both Oghams and Runes a character was sometimes
made to stand for its name. Thus the Ogham Tract tells
us that the word or syllable "Ruts" might be represented
by the Ogham character for r. So, on the other hand,
amongst the Runes, particularly as we find these in Anglo
Saxon MSS., the Runes for D, F, & M, were commonly
used to stand for the words " Daeg" (day), Fe (property),
and " Man " (man), respectively.
Both Oghams and Runes are occasionally written and
read backwards, that is to say, from right to left.
Rune-gravers wrote cu for q, as Ogham-writers made
their symbol for q to stand for cu.
It seems extremely probable that the forms of the
Tree-Runes, and of the characters in the original Ogham
alphabet, suggested the notion of using the term tree to
designate an Ogham letter. The Ogham vowels, which
have branches on both sides, are termed simply trees; the
consonants, which have branches only on one side, or
branches placed obliquely, are called side-trees. Yallancey
noticed the resemblance of the Ogham characters to trees ;
but it appears from the following passage, that in his opi
nion the form was adapted to the name, rather than the
name to the form :—
" From the Book of Oghams, translated and published
in my Vindication, it appears that the first Ogham charac
ters were intended to represent trees ; thus -f- is ex
actly the Chinese Key, or character for a tree, except
the additional oblique strokes ^ — Prospectus of a
Dictionary of the Language of the ancient Irish" Introd.,
P- 34
The idea of a stem-line as a rule or guide to the rest of
the characters seems to have been borrowed from the
Runes. Instances of Runes standing on, or depending

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468 THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

from, a single straight line are common. It was also not


unusual to make a vertical straight line the common stem
line (staf) to a number of Runes whose characteristic
strokes (kcinnestreken) branched out from it consecutively.
The letters a and o, are denoted by the same characters
in the Runic alphabet and in the original Ogham. This
circumstance may help us to account for the conformation
of the vowel group in the Ogham alphabet. Beginning
with the vowels a and o, for which he found Runic characters
already formed, viz., stem-strokes, with one or two strokes
across them, the alphabet-maker went on to invent cha
racters for the remaining vowels, on the same principle.
So much for the tree-form of the Ogham letters. Their
tree names seem to have multiplied in a somewhat similar
manner.

In the original Runic alphabet but two of the letters


are named after trees : thorn, and birch. In the later
and more developed Anglo-Saxon alphabets we find the
number of tree-names increased to six : thorn, yew, sedge,
birch, oak, and ash. The contriver of the Ogham alpha
bet named even more of his letters after trees. In this
case, as in the former one, we see an obvious progress in a
certain direction, indicating the gradual development of an
idea.

When we come to consider the powers of the letters in


the Ogham, we find fresh reason to infer its close connexion
with the Runic alphabet.
The letter h, though rightly excluded from the number
of radical letters by Irish grammarians, both ancient and
modern, was manifestly thought indispensable when the
Ogham alphabet was contrived. We cannot otherwise
account for the fact, that a character is assigned to it, the
removal of which would entirely disturb the symmetry of
the scale. This indicates that the framers of the Ogham
were influenced by a regard to a foreign alphabet includ

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 469

ing h. We find it in the Scandinavian alphabet of sixteen


Runes, as well as in the alphabets of Phoenician origin.
Again, the letter p is wanting, both in the original
Ogham of twenty letters and in the oldest Runes. And
in the later Runic alphabets it is represented by a dotted
b. [Stunginn Biarkan). On the other hand,/ is a primitive
letter in the Phoenician alphabet.
It is vain to assert that the Irish grammarians who
used and wrote about the Ogham were unacquainted with
the Scandinavian or Anglo-Saxon Runes. We have their
own evidence to the contrary. Among the Ogham alpha
bets figured in the book of Ballymote, we find two Runic
alphabets tolerably correctly written. One is called The
Ogham of the men of Lochlan, that is, of Scandinavia.
The other is named The Ogham of the Galls, that is, of the
foreigners (Northmen); and along with it are given the
old Northern names of the letters. One of the ciphers
given in the Ogham tract is called Runogam na Fian, the
secret Ogham of the Fenians, the soldiers of the ancient
Irish Militia. Two of the characters in it are actually
Runes. But the most conclusive testimony on this head is
furnished by a fragment discovered by Professor O'Curry,
in a MS. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. A
folio of vellum, used as a fly-leaf to bind together a small
fasciculus included in the volume, was found by him to
have contained a short poem, furnishing rules for the con
struction of a Runic Futhorc, and followed by the alphabet
itself, written in full. The first five letters are wanting, and
some of the remaining ones are very indistinct. Enough,
however, is left to show that it was a fully developed
and comparatively recent alphabet of Runes, arranged
according to the order of the letters in the Ogham alpha
bet. The following fac-simile exhibits as much of it as is
at all distinct.

.A.t.l.KdJ.tA.pr ijJUVM. lO.flA.-K'


h v v c j m A o u e- 1 e/l oi tM M xlS-*

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THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK ON

The beginnings and endings of several of the verses


are illegible; but their general purport appears from the
parts which remain. They were merely intended to re
mind a person of the mode in which the several Runes
were formed, thus: t as a hook (turned) towards you : two
fingers up in c; st two twigs on a twig—two fingers in the
lack of o—two twigs from one root in u, &c.
Fortunately, the last line is perfect, and contains the
following account of the manner in which this Runic
alphabet was brought into Ireland:—

" Hither was brought in the sword sheath of Lochlan's King


The Ogham across the sea. It was his own hand that cut it."

This story can hardly be an absolute fiction. The


forms of the Runes are to some extent a confirmation of
its truth. They are of the Scandinavian, not of the Anglo
Saxon type; and the assertion that the alphabet itself
was cut upon the sheath of a sword is in accordance with
what we know of the customs of the Northern people. The
hilt of the sword with which Beowulf slew the Grendel's
mother is described as having been marked with Rune
staves (Beowulf, 1. 3388); and in the Edda we find Bryn
hildr teaching Sigurdr to cut the Sigrunar (victorious
Runes) on the hilt and other parts of his sword (.Brynhildr,
Quid. 1. 6). The Archaeological Album (1845), p. 204,
furnishes us with a representation of a silver sword-hilt
thus inscribed with Runes, which was found some time
ago in Kent. Professor Stephens figures a bronze ferule
originally attached to the end of a wooden sword-sheath,
and bearing an inscription in Runes.
But it is not easy to determine what inference can be
drawn from this fragmentary statement. We are not told
in what order the Runes were arranged. If it were that of
the Bethluisnin, we should have an instance of a most
intimate connexion between Runes and Oghams, but in

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THE OGHAM ALPHABET. 471

any case the fact remains that the two alphabets are here
brought into actual contact.
The results to which the analysis of the Ogham alpha
bet itself seems to lead are the following:—
1. It is a cipher, that is to say, a series of signs which
represent letters, as the elements of a real alphabet stand
for sounds. This needs no proof. It is apparent on in
spection.
2. Being a cipher, as thus defined, it was contrived by
those who possessed a knowledge of one or more foreign
alphabets.
3. The alphabets to which it appears to be most closely
related are the Latin alphabet, and a comparatively recent
and fully developed Runic Futhorc.
4. The principle upon which the Ogham alphabet is
constructed, and the form of its characters, connect it as
closely as possible with the Tree-Runes, and it is more
rational to suppose that the Ogham was derived from the
Tree-Runes than to assume the converse; the Tree-Runes
being a particular species of Class Runes, all of which are
developed out of the Runic Futhorc.
5. The Ogham, being a cipher, is essentially cryptic in
its nature, and was used for special purposes by persons
possessing a different alphabet that served for common
use. Its cryptic character is expressly asserted in the
Ogham Tract, and is intimated plainly enough in the
Uraicept, where it is stated that the scholars of Fenius
•desired to be supplied with a means of communication
which should be unintelligible to others.
6. It is far from being stenographic, as some have
supposed. The letters h and b, which are simplest in form,
are least frequent in recurrence on the monuments ; whilst
the letters c and r, which recur most frequently, are the
most complicated characters.
7. The Ogham alphabet is not related, as some have

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472 the ogeam alphabet.

imagined, to the arrow-headed writings. These cuneiform


characters, though they include amongst them some pho
netic signs, rest essentially upon an ideographic basis;
and we find in their formation no example of the appli
cation of that principle which is fundamental in the
contrivance of the Tree-Runes, and the Ogham alpha
bet.

It remains to be seen whether the propositions above


stated are confirmed by the testimony of our monuments
and the ancient documents in which allusion is made to
the use of the Ogham character.
C. LIMERICK.

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