5 24 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



century, together with several others, including one for which the English 

 equivalent is unknown: — "The eight kinds of grain thou must not spare, 

 Mac Conglinne, wheresoever they are offered thee, viz., rye {send), wild- 

 oats (serua/ii), beare {maelan) buckwheat {ruaddn), wheat {cruithnecht), barley 



Wheat : cruthnecht, the name extant to the present day. 

 lairenn. 

 dag .i. cruthnecht, Cormac (an old grammarian). 



A special sort of wheat is called ruaddn {-an, not -tin as proved hy the Book of 

 Leinster, 150 a 2), glossed hy cruithnecht ruadh "red wheat" by the grammarian 

 O'Davoren (op. with the same meaning derg-chruithneeht in the Felire Oengusso), 

 and identified by him with maol-chruithnecht, which latter certainly expresses the 

 same as cruithnecht iiiaol, Brehon Laws, v, 222, 223. 

 Oats : corce, still extant. 



rndilan uilehi (sic leg.), Thesaurus Palffioliibernicus, ii, 4S, 26 (Philargyrus), which is 

 probably identical with Middle-Irish maelan, which Kuno Meyer in his edition of 

 Aislinge Meic Conglinne — I do not know on what authority — renders by ' beare.' 

 serbhan. For the meaning of this rare word we have to depend on the scholia of the 

 grammarians. O'Clery assigns to it the meaning coirce ' oats,' whilst the grammarian 

 of H. 3. 18 throws out the suggestion 'a certain kind of grain, probably oats' 

 (p. 637 d). serban disappeared early from the spoken language. 

 Barley: eorna, the usual word from earliest times and still extant. 

 Eve : secal, mod. seagal, still in use. 



The meaning oijfdbach is quite uncertain. Originally it probably indicated a wild plant, for it 

 cannot be disassociated from the u-stem Jidn ' a wood.' 



Of all these names corce only seems common throughout Celtic, corresponding to Welsh ceirch, 

 Corn, heirch Cruthnecht and dag are quite unaccounted for; the similarity in sound between 

 cruthnecht and Cruthne 'Pictland,' Cruthnech ' Pictish, a Pict' is remarkable, and the possibility of 

 an original meaning ' Pictish grain ' must receive consideration. Connexion between eorna and 

 Sanskrit gava ' grain, esp. barley,' Gr. (ed, horsefodder, in Homer, is extremely doubtful. Neither is 

 the comparison of tuirenn with Armenian corean convincing. Somewhat sounder is the comparison 

 of corce with the synonymous North- Germanic hagran- (Finnish loanword kakru) : the former points 

 to 'horkio, the latter to 'koJtron- . Steal originates from Lat. secale, usually regarded as a Gaulish 

 loanword. Of the remaining names, rtiadan and maelan (both -an) are derivatives of the adjectives 

 ruad ' red ' and mdel ' bald.' Likewise serban is in some way relative to serb ' bitter, acrid, sour,' 

 although I am not clear as to its precise bearing. The final an is probably long as in ruaddn. I 

 should lay no stress on the doubtful occurrence in the Annals of Ulster, anno 650. 



From the above we may conclude that wheat, oats, barley, and rye were familiar to the inhabi- 

 tants of ancient Ireland as is further proved by numerous references in earlier and later texts. For the 

 question in hand it is of the utmost importance th;it we should fix definitely the age of the recognized 

 names of grains. The undoubted connection of Irish corce : Welsh ceirch, proves the familiarity of 

 the Celts with the cultivation of oats before crossing the Channel at the beginning of the Iron Age. 

 Similarly such words as cruthnecht, tuirenn, eorna must date back to prehistoric times, as they are 

 quite isolated in Irish — had they been borrowed in the historic period their source would have been 

 traceable. I consider it highly probable that the Celts when leaving the Continent were familiar not 

 only with oats, but also with at least wheat and barley. It is quite unlikely that the advanced Celtic 

 race in Middle and West Europe should have been ignorant of these cereals, grown by neighbouring 

 tribes all around them. Wheat and barley are well known from the Swiss lake-dwellings, dating 

 from the Stone Age ; the latter is also known from Italian and Scandinavian finds of the same 

 period. Eye was, according to Pliny, cultivated by the Taurini in the Alps, and the common 

 Germanic-Slavonic name for it proves its high antiquity in North, Middle, and East Europe. The 

 Germans, according to the same author, also cultivated oats, and archaeological finds date from the 

 bronze age. We have too long entertained the idea of prehistoric Europe as portioned off by 

 insurmountable barriers permitting of no communication. Later research reveals more and more how 

 multitudinous were the streams of culture which inundated Eurone from the east and south. 



