BuicK — On Ogams discovered near Connor, Co. Antrim. 269 



The name is there treated mostly as Meuthi in the nominative and geni- 

 tive, but sometimes we have Meuthius^ genitive Meutliii, and ablative 

 Jleuthio. The th is^the Irish rule -right mutation from the t which we 

 have in Meutini ; but whether the latter form is to be regarded as the 

 genitive of a form Jleuti , or as the genitive of a derivative from Meuti 

 appears doubtful. It is certain, however, that Meutini is closely 

 •connected with that of the Goidel Meuthi who baptized and educated 

 St. Cadoe in South Wales. ]N'ow we come to the name of the man 

 commemorated on the stone ; but what was it ? Toraesceusas is like 

 no personal name that I have ever come across, and one cannot help 

 supposing that we have here two words which have to be separated ; 

 but where is the separation to be made ? At any rate the prevailing 

 formula would suggest that the termination as is that of the genitive 

 ease, corresponding to the is of such Latin forms as noctis, Veneris, and 

 the like, and it is natural to suppose that the first vocable in Toraes- 

 ■ceusas means mound, monument, or tombstone, and is the noun which 

 governs the other in the genitive. To await a better solution I venture 

 to analyse the whole into Toraes Ccusas, and see what can be made of 

 them. JS^ow there was an Irish word tuir, which meant a pillar or 

 prop, and metaphorically a lord or chief. Stokes, in his VrkeUischer 

 Sprachsschatz, gives it the meaning of 'tower,' and considers it cognate 

 with the Latin turris ; for he does not think it the Latin word 

 borrowed on account of its single r. On the whole I am inclined, 

 however, to take the contrary view and to regard both tuir and the 

 Welsh tivr, ' a tower,' which has only a single r, as borrowed from the 

 Latin, though I cannot explain the phonology. In fact I would 

 further suggest that toraes is simply turris, borrowed and treated as 

 tores, while e is loosely represented by ae. In that case one might 

 render the whole into Latin as Jlotitimentum Ceusis filU Generis Meutini. 

 But let us see what can be made of Ceusas : now if this is genitive as 

 I have supposed, the dative would have to be Ceus-i, and the nomi- 

 native Ceus-s ; but in Irish, as far back as one can trace it, the sibilant 

 between two vowels represents ss whether so written or not, and at 

 the end of a word it was di'opped, but retained elsewhere ; so the 

 nominative would be reduced to Ceu, and the genitive, losing its case- 

 termination would become Ceics. IN'ow the name Ceu occurs but as a 

 genitive, the correct genitive Ceus having, as I suppose, been forgotten. 

 Another view is possible, namely that the medial s in this word was, 

 fi'om the beginning, a single or simple sibilant, but, according to rule, 

 this disappeared early between vowels. In that case we should have 

 not only nominative Ceu"hnt also genitive Ceic; and that is the view 



