MacNeill — Notes on Irish Ogham Inscriptions. 353 



equivalent should be Natsctr in all cases, for the element Nat, Natk 

 (= Netas) l^ecomes an indeclinable proclitic in most names. Sagni appears 

 to be gen. pL, but the stem is uncertain. The word may be identified with 

 the adjectival prefix sdr-, the root of sdrugud, the sense being 'exceeding, 

 excelling,' which still belongs both to the prefix and the verb. Sdr-fhear, 'a 

 man of surpassing merit, power, etc' Shdrwigh sin orm, ' that (undertaking) got 

 the better of me, I failed to accomplish it.' BModar a' sdrughadh ar a chiile, 

 ' they were outdoing each other ' (in vilification, etc.). Netta Sagru, ' champion 

 of the mighty ones.' Cf. Dis Gassilus == ' les dieux superieurs,' ace. to 

 D'Arbois de Jubainville. 



6. Drogno = Dronct. 



7. Nisigni, Battigni, Gattigni, Cunigni. 



Corresponding to Battigni there are Baithme, Adamnan, and Baithin. For 

 Gattigni, I have only noted Gaithin, GaoitMn. I think that -in, as rare in 

 early MS. names as it is frequent later, must have come from -ignas, the 

 palatal syllable ig- determining the quality of n after loss of the termination, 

 even in the nominative, for -in is palatal in all its cases. So Mid, I, -an is 

 frequently found in genitive without palatalization. 



8. -egni, only once noted . . . eneggni may be the origin of -en. Does it 

 represent -ia-gni formed on ^'o-stems ? How account for Erxenn ? 



9. Of the consonant-groups treated of by Strachan (" Compensatory Length- 

 ening in Irish") which give rise to compensatory lengthening, gl, gn, gr survive 

 into the Ogham period. The disappearance of g from these groups cannot have 

 happened long before the MS. period. No other group of the kind has been 

 traced as surviving in Ogham Irish. 



10.. In cell, the consonant is already absorbed. Strachan quotes Stokes as 

 separating cde, ' servus,' from cde, 'comrade.' The former Stokes compares with 

 Latin cacula, 'soldier's servant'; cele, 'comrade,' and Welsh cilgd, 'comrade,' 

 might come, says Strachan, from a form *cegU6s. 1 am inclined to think that 

 the two senses of cde here treated are merely secondary, and that the primary 

 meaning is 'vassal,' if we may use a medieval term to express the relation of 

 an Irish rent-paying subject to his chief. To the chief {fiaith) he was 

 ' servus ' (serf, not slave) ; to his fellow-tenants he was ' comrade.' It has, I 

 think, been suggested that ceU may contain (in reduplication ?) the root of 

 Latin cliens. 



11. tal, which is found in Ogham Maqi Tal[i] and Talagni, is one of the 

 instances discussed by Strachan. Talagni is against the derivation from 

 Ho-aglo-. 



12. Strachan (p. 25), finding acn, acr, ad result in en, er, el, but agn,agT, 

 agl, in an, dr, dl, suggests that c persisted longer than g ; and that the changed 



K.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXYIl., SECT. C. [52] 



