Frercuson—On the Kenfig Inscription. 398 
associated with those symbols in the Oghamic text betore us. The 
symbol, it will be observed, consists of three radii, the central one, 
as explained in these writings, corresponding to the perpendicular 
shaft of the sun’s light at mid-day, and the oblique ones on either 
side corresponding to the slant rays of evening and morning (‘‘ Bard- 
das,” 1. p. 21), ‘‘and,” the tract proceeds, ‘‘it was on hearing the 
sound of the voice, which had in it the utterance of the three notes 
corresponding to the three rays, that he (¢.e. a mythical impersonation 
of Adam) obtained the three letters, and knew the sign that was 
suitable to one and other of them. . . . And it was from the three 
primary letters that was constructed every other letter. . . . Thus 
was the voice that was heard placed on record in the symbol, and 
meaning attached to each of the three notes. The sense of O was 
given to the first column, the sense of I to the second or middle column, 
and the sense of V to the third; whence the word OLV” (7. p 18). 
This OLV, or OLU, as it is elsewhere written (bid. 65), had, it is 
further stated, before the time of Taliesin, been written O. I. O., and 
was subsequently made O. I. W. (7d. p. 65, citng Simon Bradford, a 
bard of 1760-80), and its use in these various forms in the composi- 
tions of bards, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, in- 
clusive (7b. pp. 20, 21, w.), appears to be a well-established fact, 
vouched by numerous quotations, of which one will suffice here as 
showing the Scriptural and Christian complexion of this part of the 
Bardic mythos. The line is from Davydd Nanmor, who died, a.p. 
1460 :— 
O. I. ag W. yw ag Oen 
He is O. I. and W. and a lamb. 
At whatever period, therefore, the system was composed, it is evident 
that, for a long time, these expressions of the Divine Name by the 
triradial symbol and by this group of vowels have gone together in 
Bardic symbolography ; and we may now turn again to the considera- 
tion of the Oghamic text, with a reasonable certainty that if we find 
in it these vowels associated with the triradial symbols we have 
already examined, we may regard ourselves as on firm ground among 
memorials, if of a mysticism older, perhaps, than our impressions of 
Bardie pretensions may have prepared us for, yet of a mysticism 
haying its origin at some time in the Christian period. And, in fact, 
traces of the vowel O do appear after the first triradial group, and of 
other vowel points after the second, which, if eight in number, would 
yield among other combinations the equivalents I. U. Subject, there- 
fore, to the reserves which must be taken into account in dealing with 
indentations so weather-worn, and possibly mutilated, a concurrence 
of evidences seems to lead us towards the conclusion that these groups 
on the left arris are in fact the Bardic symbols and monogram of the 
Trinity. 
Some pregnant reflections will probably, by this time, have arisen 
