THE KING'S MIRROR 25 



greater fulness. Neither of these works, however, can 

 have been the source from which the chapters on Ireland 

 in the Speculum Regale have been derived. 



The learned editors of the Christiania edition of the 

 King's Mirror reached the conclusion that the author 

 did not draw from any literary source but derived his 

 information from current tales and other oral accounts.* 

 This is also the opinion of Dr. Kuno Meyer, the emi- 

 nent student of Celtic philology.f Dr. Meyer bases his 

 belief on the form of the Irish proper names. As written 

 in the Speculum Regale they can not have been copied, 

 as the spelling is not normally Irish; he believes, there- 

 fore, that they show an effort on the author's part to 

 reproduce phonetically these names as he heard them 

 spoken. But this theory ignores the fact that in writing 

 them the author employs combinations of consonants 

 which are unusual to say the least. Combinations of ch 

 and gh are used in writing nearly all the Irish proper 

 names that occur in the King's Mirror and the ^-com- 

 bination is found nowhere else in the work. J It was 

 probably coming into the language in the century to 

 which the work is credited, but the author uses it only 

 as indicated above. It seems likely, therefore, that he 

 had access to a written source, though it is also likely 

 that he did not have this account before him when the 

 writing was actually done. As has already been stated, 



* P. x. f Erin, IV., 14-16. 



J In a letter to the writer Professor Meyer expresses the belief that the use 

 of gh in the Irish proper names is an invention by the author. The combina- 

 tion of c and h is also used in certain other proper names, the system varying 

 in the different manuscripts. For a discussion of the writing of proper names 

 in the chief manuscript, see the American Facsimile Edition of the Konungs 

 Skuggsjd (edited by G. T. Flom), xxxvii-xxxix. 



