1899.] on Runic and Ogam Characters, etc. 175 



purpose as a cryptic alphabet, a set of symbols to be used on wood or 

 ou stoue instead of letters, on a system known only to a few, or that 

 the ogam was copied directly from some method of notation in which 

 it was just as easy to mark five as to mark one. The two, as you will 

 sec, ai-e not inconsistent, and the ogam may have come from some 

 cryptic system of notation in which it was about equally easy to mark 

 one, two, and up to five. 



Now the tradition is — though no ogams have been found which 

 belong to the earlier stages of which the tradition tells — that there 

 were originally only 10 ogams ; that they were then increased to 

 12 ; then to 16 ; and finally to 20. That is to say, beginning with 

 2 sets of 5 ogams, people went on to 3 sets of 4, then to 4 sets of 4, 

 and at last to 4 sets of 5. And it is said that at one change of this 

 kind the man who guided the change ordered that the ogam should no 

 longer be a secret. What can be the explanation of the ringing of 

 the changes on 4 and 5, with apparently no extra difficulty of treat- 

 ment ? And what hint can the story of the ogam ceasing to be secret 

 have for us ? 



My theory is this, that the ogams are mere copies of signs made 

 with the fingers of one hand or the other, and that when the ogams 

 were in groups of 4, with 1, 2, 3, 4 notches for signs, the fingers only 

 of each hand were used ; when they were in groups of 5, with 1, 2, 

 3, 4, 5 notches for signs, the thumb of each hand was used as well as 

 the fingers. 



The ogams which we are accustomed to see, or which 1 hope my 

 sheets of illustrations are accustoming you to see, run along on a 

 long line without discontinuity. But of course each could be made 

 separately for practical purposes. We may suppose that the 

 original operator held up his left hand and applied the point of one 

 finger at right angles for one letter, two fingers for two letters, and 

 so on up to five. Now it really makes no difference, so far as trouble 

 goes, whether you hold out five fingers or one. Then the operator 

 held up his right hand, and applied one, two, . . fingers of his left 

 hand. This accounts for ten letters. Then one finger, two, and so 

 on, laid diagonally across the palm of the other hand, will give you 

 five more. Finally, to apply the point of one finger, two, and so on, 

 to the palm of the left hand, will give you the dots for the vowels ; 

 or laid from the middle to the side of the palm, that is, short notches. 

 Conceivably, the knuckles of the clenched fist were touched for vowels. 

 The diphthongs are easy to make with the fingers. There is a curious 

 hint of fingers in the cross-line diphthongs, especially in the fact that 

 there are crosses of one finger each, two fingers each, and four fingers 

 each, none of three. The well-known difficulty of bringing up the 

 third finger without the help of the second or fourth, seems an almost 

 conclusive explanation of this phenomenon. 



My guess is that these finger-signs were used for incantation, or 

 for cryptic purposes, and that they were for long unknown except to 

 a few of the initiated. They may well have come down from ex- 



