71 



hypothetic sechtman, " week." For is the old- Irish preposition mean- 

 ing " above." Am is the relative pronoun an, which becomes am be- 

 fore b (cf. Zeuss. p. 348), and which is supposed by Cuno (Beitr. z. 

 vgl. Spr. IY., p. 228) to be a corruption of sam. Cf. for-sam-bi, " super 

 quod est," in Zeuss, p. 970. Bi is the 3rd p. s. of the verb substan- 

 tive (cf, Zeuss, p. 479). 



I propose to read : do toscelad cid lae saechtmaine, for am bi Calendae 

 Januarii, " to ascertain what [is the] day of the week on which are the 

 calends of January." 



In the second gloss : dotos cidaes nercai biss for Kl. Jan., aes or ais 

 is, according to Ebel (" Beitr. z. vgl. Sprach." I., p. 159), connected with 

 the Sancrit ay us, " aetas." Nercai is probably misread for nescai, and 

 must be divided n-escai. This old-Irish word for "moon" is found in 

 Zeuss (p. 247 and 1074), in the Irish Glosses published by Whitley 

 Stokes, and in middle-Irish, although it is extinct now. Biss is what 

 Zeuss calls the relative form of the verb substantive (p. 487). There- 

 fore I read, do toscelad cid aes n-escai biss for Calendas Januarii, " to 

 ascertain what age of the moon is on the calends of January." 



The third Gloss is — dotos aepecht for Kl. xii. mens, which I trans- 

 late, " to ascertain the epact on the calends of the twelve months." 



The fourth Gloss is — dotos aissescai for xi. Kl. dp. tribli incliol. 



Triis an old Irish preposition (cf. Zeuss, p. 610) connected with the 

 Latin trans, bli is an abbreviation for bliadan, acc. of the subst. fern. 

 bliadan, " year." I suppose that inchol is an abbreviation form cliol- 

 nigtho, gen. sing, of colnigud, 11 Incarnation" (cf. Zeuss, p. 255), all the 

 more that in the Latin text which accompanies the first gloss we have 

 the words "ab incarnatione." I read therefore: do toscelad aiss escae 

 for undecimum diem Calendarum Aprilis tri bliadan in cholnigtlio — " to 

 ascertain the age of the moon on the 11th day of the calends of April, 

 through the year of the Incarnation." 



Some word is wanting in the fifth Gloss — dotos laisecht forambi . . . 

 xii. men. — i. e. do toscelad lai sechtmaine for am bi ... " to ascertain the 

 day of the week on which is . . . 



In the sixth gloss we find the same forms again — dotos aisescai 

 super xii. Kl men — " to ascertain the age of the moon . . . ." 



The only value of these Glosses is to furnish some examples of old- 

 Irish forms. It is to be hoped that these Glosses will not be the last 

 found in the Continental libraries. Irish monks were so numerous on 

 the Continent, ten centuries ago, that they must have left more traces 

 of their diligence and of their learning than Celtic scholars have been able 

 to find up to this time. 



