Macalistkk — The " Druuides' 1 '' Inscription at Killeen Cormac. 229 



as "the druid youths," others as "Juvan the druid," equating the name 

 somehow to the Uvanos or Ovanos of the Ogham. Though I always was 

 suspicious of I he "druid," the latter was the interpretation that I favoured 

 before I hit, on the idea set forth in this paper ; but how, in defiance of all 

 the relevant laws of phonology, IVVENE was to be equated to OVANOS, 

 and how DRW IDES was to be parsed, no one arose to tell us. 



In his British Academy paper above referred to, Sir John Ehys, who had 

 previously read the letter as N. announced his reversion to the older view, 

 that it is an R. He pointed out that if the letter were to be read as an N 

 in monogram with the following E, the lower point of the oblique stroke 

 should come in contact with the lower angle of the E. But there is no such 

 contact, as will be seen from the accompanying facsimile, reduced from a good 

 rubbing kindly placed at my disposal by Lord Walter FitzGeralcl. Further, 

 Sir John thought that he could detect faint traces of the missing loop of 

 the R ; and he spaced the whole IVVERE DRVVIDES, translating it " the 

 druid of Ireland ": an interpretation which he supported with his well-known 

 opulence of learning and ingenuity. 



In the course of the present year I have had two opportunities of 

 examining this stone afresh. The first time I went specially for the purpose 

 of examining the ambiguous letter, and of trying to come to some conclusion 

 about it. The second time was on the occasion of the annual excursion of 

 the National Literary Society, which under my guidance visited the cemetery 

 last June. The first visit was unfortunately marred by heavy rain ; yet this 

 was not wholly a disadvantage, as the water lying in the grooves of the 

 letters brought them into a prominence that on fine days (except under 

 special conditions of lighting) they do not possess. The visit, in spite of the 

 rain, was by no means lost ; I was able to make certain observations which 

 on the second visit, whan the weather conditions were favourable, I confirmed, 

 and have now no hesitation in bringing forward. 



Sir John Rhys is most certaiuly right in saying that the letter cannot be 

 N, and all interpretations which assume that value for the letter are wrong. 

 On the other hand, I cannot agree that the letter is R. The small fracture is 

 too small to have contained the most exiguous loop, and I cannot trace the 

 faint marks in which Sir John Rhys sees the loop of the R. In my opinion 

 the letter is neither N nor R ; and I do not believe that it ever was any more 

 than the two strokes that we see ; all that is lost is the apex in which they 

 met. The letter thus resembled a Greek lambda with one stroke vertical ; or 

 a Greek gamma with the horizontal stroke made oblique. And, for reasons 

 presently to be adduced, 1 now believe that the latter is what it actually is, 

 and that we are to read the line of letters IVVEGEDRVVIDES. 



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