October 1, 1896.J 



KNOWLEDGE. 



?33 



are several points of resemblance between the two alphabets, 

 and there are also several points of divergence. 



Runes undoubtedly originated iu the North of Europe, 

 but from what, or at which perioil, no one knows. 

 Mythologically, Odin is said to have invented them — the 

 Northmen, like most other races, believing that all 

 knowledge, wisdom, and arts originated with their divinities 

 and traditional heroes. Hence the old sagx : — 



Tliou^ht-runes slialt thou deal with 



If thou wilt he of all men 



Fairest-souled wight and wisest. 



These areded, 



These first cut. 



These first took to heart high Hropt [OJin]. 



Modern conjecture — conjecture only — refers the runic 

 characters to the Phu'iiician, the prototype of the Greek 

 and Litin alphabets. Runes, and ogbams as well, were 

 primarily intended not to be written, but to be cut (sec 

 quotation above) in wood, stone, horn, etc., as may be seen 

 from the simple combinations of straight lines which make 

 up both alpbabtt?. A few books, however, exist, which 

 are written in runes. The word '• rune,"' Gjthic rdna, 

 signifies something hidden, secret (knowledge, more 

 particularly), and, as M. Botkine, in his " Chanson des 

 Runes," expressrs it, not only science and power, but the 

 means of communicating these. Runic inscriptions are 

 comparatively frequent in England, and occur also iu 

 Scotland ; but AYales and Ireland have not a single example, 

 excepting a small coin bearing runic letters which was 

 struck at Dublio. It is a curious fact, showing what bold 

 adventurers tbc Northmen were, that actually in North 

 America runic inscriptions have been discovered. One 

 at Arrow Head, on the Potomac River, is cut in a 

 rock, and commemorates the widow of a Norse chieftain. 

 It runs ; — " Here lies Syasi, the fair one of \Yestern Ice- 

 land, the widow of Koldr, sister of Thorgr by her father, 

 aged twenty-five years. God be merciful to her." 



As remarked above, the time at which runes wa-e in- 

 vented is uncertain, but it has been thought that they 

 should be attributed to the first or second century uc. 

 The alphabet, or " futhorc," as it is called from its first six 

 letters, is divided into three parts, called " aetts " or 

 families, and named after the first letter of each family : 

 Frey's (¥) Aett, Hagl's (H) Aett, and Tyr's (T) Aett. 

 The oldest form of the futhorc, the Gothic, from which 

 are derived the later locil forms of the Scandinavian, the 

 Anglian, and the Manx runes, is as follows : — 



9A^^f><X|> N1-|f)v^BYS I'&nMI^-O'lxi^ 



F U ThOR C CVJ H N I Y EO P A S TB E M LNg O 



Frcv's Aett. Hagl's Aett. Tvr's Aett. 



Tlie futhorc was introduced into Britain by the .lutes iu 

 the fifth century, soon after the departure of the Romans, 

 and continued to be used till the tenth or eleventh century. 

 Runes abound in Jutland and in Scandinavia generally, 

 though they were quite unknown to the Saxons and 

 Germans. Anglian runes are generally found on monu- 

 mental or sepulchral slabs —some of them Christian — and 

 on those large sculptured crosses still existing in different 

 parts of our islands. As an example of the latter we may 

 instance the Ruthwell Cross. This takes its name from 

 Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire, which in early times formed 

 part of Northumbria. Its date is probably about (ISO a.i>. 

 It is covered with carvings of Scriptural subjects arranged 

 iu panels, whose frames are cut with runes relating " The 

 Dream of the Holy Rood," a poem ascribed to Ciidmon, 

 the miraculously-inspired poet of Whitby. In this poem a 

 sleeper is supposed to dream of a marvellous tree, which 

 speaks to him and tells how it was hewn down by men 



with axes, and set upon a " beetling headland." Seeing 

 to what use it was to be put, it would have broken itself, 

 but dared not " against the Dreetan's word." It describes 

 the Crucifision — the Savioi.r is fastened on it. "Rood 

 was I reared now, Rich king heaving. " And then : 

 •' Wept all creation, Wailed the fall of their King, Christ 

 was on Rood." 



Another object ornamented with runes is a casket of 

 whale's bone in the British Museum, the history of which 

 is unknown. It is of Northumbrian work, and is nine 

 inches long by seven and a half broad, and five and one- 

 eighth high. On the first side it shows carvings repre- 

 senting Romulus and Remus ; on the second. Titus 

 storming Jerusalem ; on the third, the delivery of the head 

 of John the Baptist ; and on the lid a scene from the 

 Teutonic legend of Egil. Of the fourth side only a frag- 

 ment remains. The date of this casket is somewhere 

 between 700 and 800 k d. The carvings are accompanied 

 by descriptive runes. 



Although the greater number of British runic inscrip- 

 tions are found in the North of England, the oldest extant 

 spec'mien, assigned to the fifth century a.d., belongs to 

 Sandwich, in Kent. Two headstones thus inscribed have 

 also been found in London, in the neighbourhood of 

 St. Paul's, one of which may be seen in the GuildhaU 

 Jluseum. 



The ogham characters are found in great numbers in 

 Ireland ; there are some in ^\'ales and the extreme South- 

 West of England, and a few in ScothnJ. None are known 

 outside the British Islands. They are formed by dividing 

 the alphabet into four aicmes or kinds, of five letters each. 

 The first contains BLFSN, the second HTDCQ, the 

 third MGNgStR. and the fourth the vowels AOUEI. 

 The letters are represented by one, two, three, four, or five 

 strokes for each letter, according to its order in the aicme 

 to which it belongs. A line is drawn, which may bs 

 either perpendicular or horizontal — we will consider it as 

 horizontal in the present instance — and the strokes repre- 

 sentiuL,' letters of the first aicme are placed unilcr this line, 

 those representing letters of the second aicme are placed 

 a)i<)ee the line, those representing letters of the third aicme 

 ilitdjonallij tliniuijli the line, and those representing letters 

 of the fourth aicme cutting the line at right angles. Thus, 

 the Celtij word //((/'/(' (mac), meaning " son of," would 

 stand ■—/—{ — ' "" m i l . In the case of the main line 

 or stem being perpendicular, the strokes of the first aicme 

 would be placed at the right hand, and those of the second 

 at the left hand, the others as before, and the inscription 

 read upwards. As a rule the edge of the stone is used 

 as the stem line, and the strokes are on one side of 

 the stone, or its face, or both, according to the aicme 

 they belong to. The oldest form seems to have been 

 that in which a separate perpendicular line was taken 

 for every letter, instead of one common line being used 

 for all. 



It is a curious and as yet unsolved problem as to 

 whether these oghams were deris'ed from the futhorc. 

 One of the points in which the two alphabets resemble 

 each other is that to the inventors of both the forms of 

 the characters seem to have been suggested by trees — or, 

 at any rate, they themselves suggested trees. Cmon 

 Taylor, in his interesting work, " Greeks and Goths," says 

 that " both the runes and the oghams were regarded as 

 constituting a mysterious alphabetical forest in which grew 

 trees of twenty species; " and, moreover, the names of the 

 Irish oghams were all names of trees, i-..;.. A, .///»», or 

 Fir; B, licith, or Birch, and so on: though certainly these 

 names, which went by the name of the " Bethluisnon 



