44 



did the "Black Gentiles," as the Danes were called by the 

 pagan Irish, introduce it into Ireland? 



The letter B, beta in Greek and beth in Hebrew, is beith in 

 Celtic, and is said to have stood for the birch, Betula, — most 

 probably the common European birch {Betula alba) which is 

 frequent on heaths, in woods, and mountain glens. This tree 

 has nearly the same range of distribution as the European 

 elm {Ulmiis montana) and is consequently another tree of the 

 old Celtic world. One of their most useful and ornamental 

 trees, the birch entered into the fundamentals of the old Norse- 

 men, since the letter B stands for bjdrkan or bjork, the birch, 

 with them also. 



There are a number of vernacular plant names in Irish be- 

 ginning with the letter B, of which the following are the most 

 noteworthy: Beath or beathog, the beech (Fagus sylvatica) was 

 also known as Beith na measa or the "birch with the acorns." 

 If we start somewhere in Sweden in the latitude of Stockholm 

 (59° North) and travel southward, we traverse forest areas 

 covered mostly with spruce, pine, or birch, and after having 

 reached southern Sweden we enter the dominion of the beech 

 which becomes the prominent species, contesting with the oak 

 the first place among trees. The birch preferring the cooler 

 regions becomes rarer on the lowlands as we continue southward. 

 It is possible, therefore, that the old Celtic bards meant to honor 

 the beech or beith na measa, rather than the rare mountain- 

 loving birch, the beith. This view is the more probable if we 

 consider the name of the old Irish alphabet, Beath-luis-nion, 

 which translated into our language becomes "beech-quicken 

 tree-ash." In this old Irish alphabet the first three letters 

 were B, L, and N. The modern sequence of letters, beginning 

 with ailm ("a"), was initiated by St. Patrick. This renowned 

 man it will be of interest to recall was nicknamed by the Irish 

 people babloir, i. e., the talker, — literally prater or babbler. 

 Barbog, or slender point, is the name for barberry bush. Beal- 

 teine, meaning Baal-fires, was the name given by the heathen 

 Celt to Mayday in honor of the god Beal. The latter name 

 brings us back to Old Testament days of Baal. 



The letter C, in the Celtic alphabet, the equivalent of the 

 Greek kappa and chi, is coll, and stands for the hazel bush. In 

 the Viking language the letter H stood for the same thing, i. e., 

 hastl or hassel {Corylus avellana). 



