Ferguson — On the Biliteral Key to the Ogham Alphabet. 177 



equivalence of lo in the Trenacatus legend to i{ locus"); and that the 

 force of q is inferred from its making up with its associated characters 

 already known the Irish equivalent of films in its form maqi ; but that 

 p, r, and b, remain unidentified. 



The fact that so large a proportion of the British Ogham alphabet, 

 ascertained by these independent tests, is found to correspond with the 

 traditionary Ogham key preserved in Ireland would justify the infer- 

 ence that the few remaining unproved characters are also the same in 

 both. But further research, and a closer examination of other Ogham 

 texts remaining in South "Wales and Devonshire, enable us to altogether 

 dispense with inference, and establish by evidence as direct in the case 

 of these as of the others, what are their Oghamic equivalents in the 

 alphabets of both countries. 



The proofs are derived partly from Ogham- inscribed biliteral monu- 

 ments in South Wales, the existence of which has been made known by 

 Professor "West wood in his valuable papers in the Archceologia Cambrensis ; 

 and partly from independent observation in South "Wales and Devon- 

 shire. 



I begin with the letter p. It is one of the difficulties which they 

 who contend for the recent origin of Ogham writing have to surmount 

 that, while the Ogham seems to follow the Latin alphabet in giving 

 equivalents for both c and a, it omits from its regular paradigm the 

 letter p, — a character very conspicuous in Latin texts, — and expresses 

 it only by a supplemental combination. Before I had acquired the art 

 of securing the certainty of such texts by making casts in paper, I gave 

 a diligent study to the Turpill inscription at Crickhowel, in Monmouth- 

 shire, and indicated the result soon after to the Academy. On the 

 arrises of this pillar, now erected in IJsk Park, near Crickhowel, there 

 exist the remains of the Ogham legend which formerly gave an echo to 

 the names in the Latin epigraph on the flat of the stone : — Turpilli ic 

 iacitpvveri trilvni Dvnocati. This use of the genitive, which will strike 

 most ears as ungrammatieal, is so frequent in similar sepulchral texts 

 as to lead to the supposition that the " hicjacet" is put in the concrete, 

 and governs the subject name as one noun governs another. Turpill, the 

 principal name, may, from the analogy of the other " biliterals," be 

 expected to be found amongst the Oghams ; and here in fact, the al- 

 ready ascertained letters, ttte, followed, after an intermediate character, 

 by the digits, which (if "fill" be the equivalent of fiilii), would stand 

 for l l, and which again precede the remains of the patronymical formula 

 leading up to another intermediate followed by n n, actually occur. 

 The first intermediate characters seem of necessity to be the equivalent 

 of p. It is indicated, not as in some of the Irish manuscript keys by a 

 flat i, but by the combination of two oblique lines intersecting one 

 another, in form of a St. Andrew's cross, under the line of the arris. 

 The second intermediate, commencing the name of the father, of which 

 nn is still traceable, may, with nearly equal confidence, be assumed to 

 be the d of Duncad or some such equivalent of the Latin Dunocatus. 

 I proceed, however, to an identification of d, which is more satisfactory, 



