365 



vellum, used as a fly-leaf to bind together a small fasciculus 

 included in the volume, was found by him to have contained a 

 short poem furnishing rules for the construction of a Runic 

 Ogham, and followed by the alphabet itself written in full. The 

 first five letters of the latter are wanting, and some of the re- 

 maining ones are very indistinct. Enough, however, is left 

 to show that it was a fully developed and comparatively recent 

 alphabet of Runes, arranged according to the order of the 

 letters in the Ogham alphabet. The following fac-simile 

 exhibits as much of it as is at all distinct. 



h V V c ^ fnS^ST^P '^ o u e- 1 e/ioiiw)4-46" 



The beginnings and endings of several of the verses are 

 illegible ; but their general purport appears from the parts 

 which remain. They were merely intended to remind a per- 

 son of the mode in which the several Runes were formed; 

 thus : z as a hook [turned'] towards you : two fingers up in c ; 

 ^z two twigs on a twig — two fingers in the back of o — two 

 twigs from one root in u — S^c. 



Fortunately the last line is perfect, and contains the fol- 

 lowing distinct recognition of the introduction of the Ogham : 



Uucat) anall a cpuaill claibeim pi 6ochlano 

 In cojum Dap leap api a laim pen po oapben. 



Hither was brought, in the sword sheath of Lochlan's king, 

 The Ogham across the sea. It was his own hand that cut it. 



If this statement be true, it would appear that the Ogham 

 alphabet of twenty-five letters, simple and compound, arranged 

 in a peculiar order, was introduced into Ireland from some 

 part of Scandinavia or northern Germany. But, wherever 

 it had its origin, the order of its letters must have been fixed 

 upon before the tree-shaped characters were invented ; and 

 this order, as we have already observed, being founded on 

 2 E 2 



