Macalistek — Oh a Runic Inscription at Killaloe Cathedral. 495 



indeed, not one Eunic alphabet, but several, united by bonds of filiation, 

 but distinguished by certain test letters from one another. It is curious that 

 the three Irish Eunic inscriptions are each in a different alphabet. 



The Blasket rune contains among its three letters the character T\ for M 

 This is enough to assign it to what Stephens called the " Old Northern " 

 alphabet, or its variety the " Anglian " : and to show that the Blasket rune 

 is the oldest of the three. It is noteworthy that it is also in the least 

 accessible situation. 



The Greenmount rune was found in a totally unexpected place — in the 

 earth of a Norman motte, which seems to have been adapted from an older 

 tumulus. The earth contained an extraordinarily heterogeneous assortment 

 of objects, including a fiat fianged axe-head from an early period of the 

 Bronze Age, a harp-peg, and the slip of silvered bronze, which bore an 

 interlacing ornament on one side and a Eunic graffito on the other. These 

 objects must have been by chance in the earth which the Normans heaped 

 up ; and, so far as the not very satisfying account of the excavation permits 

 us to Judge,' their position in the site where they were found tells us nothing 

 about their date. 



The Greenmount inscription reads tomnall sels-hofoJ? a soerJ? [J?] eta — 

 " Domhnall the Seal-headed owns this sword." Noting in passing, for future 

 reference, that the person named, though presumably a Scandinavian, had a 

 Celtic appellation, we proceed to analyse the palaeography of the inscription. 

 Its special test-letters are t(-'I), m (S'), n (h), A (-■I), s ('), ii (>l<), o (^), 

 and E (+). These all unite it with the "Scandinavian" alphabet of Stephens. 

 If we compare the nearest group of inscriptions — those in the Isle of Man — 

 we observe notable differences, which are enough to show that, whoever 

 Domhnall may have been, he had nothing to do with the Scandinavian 

 settlers in that island. Those inscriptions are distinguished by the use of 

 •f for H (not for E), and of |% for (not A , which in Man represents b). 



The Killaloe inscription has, unfortunately, few test-letters : in other 

 words, it happens that most of the characters which it contains are common 

 to all the varieties of the Euuic alphabet. We see, however; the ^ for M, 

 the ^ and |>. for A, N (with the cross-stroke on one side of the upright line 

 only). T also, which in the oldest alphabet is ^, here appears with only one 

 of its side-strokes ; by a strange mistake, to which I can find no parallel, the 

 engraver has retained the wrong side-stroke, writing p instea.d of "(. The 

 result of this is, that the letter which he has actually written is not T at all, 

 but L ; the context, however, leaves no doubt as to his intention. On the 



1 Roy. Hist, and Arch. Assoc, of Ireland, ser. iv, vol. i (1870-1), p. 471. 



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