Frreuson—On the Kenfig Inscription. 347 
L.—On tHe Kenic Inscrrerion. By Sie Samvet Ferevson, 
LL.D., Q.C., President. 
[Read, February 12, 1883. ] 
Tue object of this Paper is to show probable grounds for believing 
that traces of the name Merry, as well as of certain Christian 
symbols, the antiquity of which has of late years been generally dis- 
credited, exist on the Ogham-inscribed stone at Kenfig in Glamorgan- 
shire. 
The other Ogham inscriptions of Wales and South Britain are 
couched in the same form and dialect as those of Iveland. Early 
British and Irish Histories (Wennius Hist. Brit., c. viil., lxvi., Cormac 
Gloss., Mug Eime) allege an Irish settlement in South Wales and South 
Britain in and before the third century, as well as an expulsion of 
these settlers on the advent from Northern Britain of a conquering 
race, described as the sons of Cunedda, before the middle of the fifth. 
Those archaeologists, who regard these inscriptions as old British, 
conceive the language of both countries to have been the same until 
the revolution consequent on this invasion induced on the old British 
language its present Welsh characteristics, of which the most noticeable 
for the purposes of this Paper is the substitution of P for K or Q, as 
in Hap, a son, for Wag or Mac in the other dialect. In either point of 
view—it is not necessary to discuss which is the better grounded— 
the ordinary Welsh Oghams are, primd facie, referable to a remote 
epoch, possibly not later than the sixth century. 
The fable of Merlin, at least under his name of Ambrosius, is as 
old as the British Nennius (about a.p. 858), who makes him cotem- 
porary with Vortigern and the coming of the Saxons; but he is not 
mentioned by his name Merlin in documents earlier than the twelfth 
century. The symbols referred to have hitherto been known only in 
Welsh bardic tracts of an age not going above the fifteenth. To carry 
back either the name or the symbols in question to Welsh Oghamic 
times would consequently corroborate Welsh pretensions to a high-age 
literature by a very authentic kind of evidence. There were two 
Merlins; one the British magician, ascribed to the fifth; the other 
the Caledonian prophet, to the sixth century. The earlier Merlin with 
whom we are here concerned was the ‘“‘infans sine patre” of the tale 
in Nennius (c. xliii., xliv.), the ‘‘son of the Nun,” of medizeval romance. 
The Nun of Caermarthen is fabled to have borne him to a spirit, and 
throughout Welsh poetry and tradition he is known as Jap, the son, 
or an Map, the illegitimate or misborn son of the Nun; in the Welsh 
language an map and an hap UWeian. I do not pretend to penetrate the 
mysticism lying behind the popular ideas attaching to him ; but if this 
be his name which, on the Kenfig stone, appears to answer to another 
proper name, in Latin, also inscribed upon it, it may reasonably be 
believed that under the puerile outlines of the fable something esoteric 
lies concealed. 
R.1I.A. PROC., SER. Il. VOL. 11.—POL. LIT. AND ANTIQ. 2 Q 
