Ferguson — On the Transcription of Ogham Legends. 57 



Museum of the Academy, which appears to have been contrived 

 to exhibit a double inversion vnthin the compass of one word. 

 This is the legend on the Aglish stone, No. 1, already referred to as 

 having, although associated with supposed Pagan crosses, a Christian 

 signification. It is one of those on which much ingenuity and learn- 

 ing were exercised in the earlier stages of Ogham investigation, and 

 to which we are indebted for the reference to the Uraicept, showing 

 that the vphin (which is most probably the cross-like character x), 

 sometimes has the force of p. Taking the legend to stand thus — 



i x , M " ii " || ^ »- 



It was read accordingly, apilogdo. Before going urther, let me 

 corroborate the presumed identity of the x in this case with the 

 iphin in its^? power. I have mentioned the agreement of what remains 

 of the Crickhowel Ogham with the correlative Latin Turpilli triluni 

 filii Dunocati icjacit. The Ogham equivalents of the t, u, andr are 

 distinct, and the place of^? appears occupied by the x, with no trace of 

 any sub-linear digit immediately following. We then discern the I ; 

 and after a space, where possibly the remains of maqi will yet appear 

 on a cast being taken — for the stone is so placed as to be hardly con- 

 suitable otherwise — obtain the d and, at least, one n of the Latinized 

 Dunncad. Hence arises a persuasive argument that the x on the Crick- 

 howel monument is the sometimes-^-sounding iphin of the Uraicept. To 

 return to the Aglish stone, it appears, on moulding it, that the penulti- 

 mate and ante-penultimate groups have originally constituted one. Three 

 of the digits certainly cross, and a fracture accounts for the non-ap- 

 pearance of portion of the fourth. These digits, therefore, instead 

 of gd, would sound st. This rectification, however, would only lead 

 us from apilogdo to apilosto. But in investigating a curious branch of 

 the inquiry, touching the employment of monograms in those legends, 19 

 the introduction of a cardinal digit dividing the course of the reading, 

 appears to have been one of the artifices of the engraver. In such 

 cases the digit serving this purpose may be observed to be marked as 



19 The occurrence of monograms, composed of bind-runes, or Runic sigla, in 

 Norse inscriptions, prepares us to look for analogous forms in Ogham. I instance 

 the names Odin and Olafur, figmed (p. 47) in " Report for 1836 of the Royal Society 

 of Northern Antiquaries," in the first of which the runes, besides being all of the 

 nature of sigla, read backwards. 



The monument which seems to give us a key to the existence of similar glyptical 

 puzzles in Ogham writing, exists at Vicarstown, or Tyvoria, in the parish of 

 Dunquin, in the extreme west of Kerry. The paper-cast is No. n. in the presen- 

 tation. Tyvoria signifies the House of Mauria, or Mary ; and the grave of Mauria 

 is pointed out near the village. 



On the eastern face of a pillar-stone, now at the head of the grave, or little cairn, is 

 sculptured a Latin cross, and on the western are two groups of carving, one over the 

 other. The upper presents a peculiar arrangement of straight lines, and the lower n 

 combination of Romanesque characters, in which are plainly recognizable the 

 elements of the name Maria. 



