462 
“(cain ogaim Ogma. Ma- 
tain ogaim Lam no peran Ogma. 
Ipé po imoppo in céona m po 
‘<The father of Ogham was 
Ogma; the mother of Ogham was 
the hand or knife of Ogma. This 
indeed was the first thing that 
was written through Ogham, 
viz.,” &c. ' 
repibad cp ogaim .1.” Ke. 
The meaning, as is quite plain from the context, being, 
that Ogma was the inventor of the Ogham character, and 
that the instrument with which he first executed it was his 
own hand or knife. Vallancey, in his Essay on the Ogham 
Writing of the Ancient Irish (Collectanea, vol. vy. p. 79), 
gives the following reading and version of the same words : 
‘* The father of Ogum was 
Ogma, his mother’s name was 
Lam, or Scian Ogma (the help- 
** Atair Ogaim, Ogma ; ma- 
thar Ogaim, Lam, no Scian 
Ogma. Is sé Sm in ceadna : 
sé ro scribtar tri Ogam,” &e. mate of Ogam). The same is 
called S6m: he wrote his own 
name in three Oghams,” &c. 
Here it will be seen that Vallancey has introduced two 
imaginary personages, Som and Lam, neither of whom were 
thought of by the Irish writer; and he expends a vast quan- 
tity of irrelevant erudition in making out this Som to bea 
Theban (Egyptian) Hercules, and Lam to be the daughter of 
Belus and Libya. ‘* This helpmate” [of Ogam] he adds, ‘* was 
named Lam, or Lamia, which signifies a horrid, dreadful mon- 
ster; hence must have arisen the Grecian story of Hercules 
having begotten Scythes, the progenitor of the Scythians, on 
A fable 
which gained ground wherever the Scythians went,—from 
Scythia to Tartary, China, and Japan.” 
It ought to be added that, by tampering with two other 
the body of a monster, half woman, half serpent. 
passages in a like way, Vallancey has elsewhere educed the 
name of his Theban Som (Collectanea, vol. v. pp. 63, 69). 
Mr. Graves referred to another instance in which, by a 
