FERGUSON — On the Transcription of Ogham Legends. 41 



not be had entire — everything in this class known to exist from the 

 western extremity of Corkaguiny at Dunmore Head, to a line drawn 

 from Brandon monntain on the north to Lispole Bridge and the sea on 

 the south. Many other and valuable memorials of the same class exist 

 to the east of this line, onward to Camp, in the neighbourhood of Tralee ; 

 but these (save that at Camp, which, having turned out to be both 

 "bi-lingual," and "bi-literal,"was of too great novelty and value not 

 to be included) have been left to some future occasion, and possibly for 

 soma other and more workman-like hands to make available for use 

 in the Inscriptional Museum. 



The collection may be distinguished as regards the method of 

 writing into — first, those angular pillars, the corners or arrises of 

 which constitute the stem line ; secondly, those rounded blocks, on the 

 smooth convex sides and ends of which the digits are arranged at 

 successive relative levels without any stem line ; and, thirdly, ono 

 example in which the stem line is inaculpted together with the digits 

 on the face of the monument. 



As to the first class, most persons who have given a careful 

 inspection to" our Museum will be familiar with their appearance ; and 

 some, no doubt, will have observed that their shape has rendered them 

 peculiarly liable to damage by fracture. So much is this the case that, 

 of the twelve already in our Museum, it is questionable if any one can 

 be considered complete ; while of the number now added in paper of 

 this class, three only can be referred to as presenting complete and 

 perfect legends. Not so the second and third classes. Their compara- 

 tively smooth surfaces have preserved almost all in substantially com- 

 plete preservation. Of these some are inscribed in characters having their 

 ordinary alphabetic force ; others, or at least one, in such characters, 

 with the introduction apparently of certain intercalated successions of 

 consonants, the vocalization of which would appear to be effected by 

 a process of coalescing the antithetical groups, and converting them 

 into stem-crossing digits having vocalic values. 8 



Of these ordinarily-conceived epigraphs, some, such for example as 

 Moinena maqi olacon — Curcitti — Tria maqa mailagni — Dofeti maqqi 

 cattini — inissimon — are easily decipherable ; others are more, and some 

 very much more, difficult ; but all, I believe, can now be read with 

 reasonable certainty. 



8 Such might seem to be the key to the Ring Ogham on the stone at Logie in Aber- 

 deenshire. This legend, as we find it in the " Sculptured Stones in Scotland," 

 in whatever direction read, yields prima facie, nothing but consonants — grftqbh, 

 or grtfnhb. Two pairs of these, bh and ft, are antitheticals in the above sense. 

 Coalescing them, by M'Curtin's second rule, they become a and u respectively, and 

 there results, in what seems the most obvious course of combination, the name 

 Gruqa. The temptation to compare Gruoch, daughter of Boede, once queen of 

 that region, named in the Chatulary of St. Andrew's, but better known in a 

 more imaginative field of literature, would be irresistible, if a paper mould of the 

 legend, obligingly forwarded to me by Colonel Forbes Leslie, while this paper is 

 going through the press, did not relegate Lady Macbeth to the region of shadows 

 by disclosing new digits differently disposed. 



