462 



"Qraip ojaim Osma. Hla- " The father of Ogham was 



raip o^aim lum no pcian O jma. Ogma ; the mother of Ogham was 

 Ipe po imoppo in ceDna m po the hand or knife of Ogma. This 

 pcpiBoD cpi o5aim .1." Sec. indeed was the first thing that 



was written through Ogham, 



viz.," &.C. 



The meaning, as is quite plain from the context, being, 

 that Ogma was the inventor of the Ogham character, and 

 that the instrument with which he first executed it was his 

 own hand or knife. Vallancey, in his Essay on the Ogham 

 Writing of the Ancient Irish {Collectanea, vol. v. p. 79), 

 gives the following reading and version of the same words : 



'■'■ Atair Ogaim,Ogma; ma- " The father of Ogum was 



thar Ogahn, Ldm, no Scian Ogma, his mother's name was 

 Ogma. Is se Som in ceadna : Lam, or Scian Ogma (the help- 

 se TO scribtar tri Ogam,''' Sfc. mate of Ogam). The same is 



called Som : he wrote his own 

 name in three Oghams," &c. 



Here it will be seen that Vallancey has introduced two 

 imaginary personages, Som and Lam, neither of whom were 

 thought of by the Irish writer ; and he expends a vast quan- 

 tity of irrelevant erudition in making out this Som to be a 

 Theban (Egyptian) Hercules, and Lam to be the daughter of 

 Belus and Libya. " This helpmate" [of Ogam] he adds, " was 

 named Ldm, or Lamia, which signifies a horrid, dreadful mon- 

 ster; hence must have arisen the Grecian story of Hercules 

 having begotten Scythes, the progenitor of the Scythians, on 

 the body of a monster, half woman, half serpent. A fable 

 which gained ground wherever the Scythians went, — from 

 Scythia to Tartary, China, and Japan." 



It ought to be added that, by tampering with two other 

 passages in a like way, Vallancey has elsewhere educed the 

 name of his Theban Som {Collectanea, vol. v. pp. 63, (iQ). 



Mr. Graves referred to another instance in which, by a 



