360 



ea, eaba&, aspen, 



oi, oip, spindlelree. 



ui, uilleann, woodbine, 



la, ipin, gooseberry. 



ae, amhancoU, twin coll: as it 

 is formed of two colls, c's , or 

 sets of four parallel strokes, 

 laid one across the other. 



The Ogham, like the Greek Alphabet, is called Bethluis- 

 nin, or Bethluis, from its first two letters. The former 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 statement; on 

 the other hand, there are passages in it which show that the 

 word nin was occasionally taken in a general signification, and 

 was used with reference to all the letters of the alphabet in- 

 diff'erently. 



The letters of the Bethluisnin are all called trees (peaSa) ; 

 but that name is applied in a special signification to the vow- 

 els, as being trees in the most proper sense. The conso- 

 nants are termed side-trees (caobomna) ; and the diphthongs 

 over-trees (poppeaoa). The continuous stem-line along which 

 the Ogham letters are ranged is termed the ridge (opuim) ; 

 each short stroke, perpendicular or oblique to it, is called a 

 twig (pleapj). 



The formation of the Ogham characters indicates a divi- 

 sion of the alphabet into groups, each containing five letters. 

 Each group is named after its first letter. Thus the letters 

 ^j l> f, s, n form the b group (aicme b) ; h, d, t, c, g, the h 

 group (aicme h) ; and so on. The diphthongs (poppeoa) form 

 a group named the popaicme. 



One of the first things to be remarked in this Ogham al- 

 phabet is the separation of the letters into consonants and 

 vowels. This arrangement alone ought to have satisfied any 

 scholar that it was the work of a grammarian, and not a ge- 

 nuine primitive alphabet. Again, the vowels are arranged ac- 

 cording to the method of the Irish grammarians, who have 



