362 



of the remaining letters in that group. Thus the symbol for 

 f, written thrice, stood for th ; two ^'s for n; and so on. 

 Here again we have an instance of the use of the principle on 

 which the Ogham alphabet was framed. 



It seems extremely probable that the forms of the letters 

 in the Runic alphabet, figured above, and in the original 

 Ogham alphabet, suggested the notion of naming the letters 

 of the latter after trees. The Ogham vowels, which have 

 twigs (pleapja) on both sides, are termed simply trees ; the 

 consonants, which have branches only on one side, or branches 

 placed obliquely, are called side-trees.* 



The idea of a stem-line as a rule or guide to the rest of 

 the characters seems to have been borrowed from the Runes. 

 Goransson furnishes us with several instances of Runes stand- 

 ing on, or depending from, a single straight line. It was also 

 not unusual to make a vertical straight line the common stem- 

 line (5taf) to a number of Runes, whose characteristic strokes 

 (fanne^trefen) branched out from it consecutively. 



The letters a and o are denoted by the same characters 

 in the oldest Swedish Runic alphabet and in the original 

 Ogham. This circumstance may help us to account for the 



* Vallancey noticed the resemblance of the Ogham characters to trees ; but he 

 seems to have thought that the form was adapted to the name, rather than the name 

 to the form : 



" From the Book of Oghams, translated and published in my Vindication, it ap- 

 pears that the first Ogham characters were intended to represent trees ; thus, "1" : 

 ■which is exactly the Chinese key, or character for a tree, except the additional ob- 

 lique strokes, TT." — Prospectus of a Dictionary of the Language of the ancient 

 Irish, Introd., p. 34. 



It ought also to be mentioned, that an Arabic collection of alphabets, by Ibn 

 Wahshih, translated by Von Hammer, contains two tree-shaped alphabets ; of which 

 one is constructed on precisely the same principle as the Ogham. This work, which 

 for a time imposed upon the half learned, is now proved to be of no authority. The 

 greater number of the alphabets which it contains are merely fictitious; and its pre- 

 tended explanations of Egj'ptian hieroglyphics are all found to be incorrect. 



