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word fy'r. This must be the rune intended, and vM " fire 
is probably the lost root of the old English iculdor, Goth. 
wulthus. Of the other runes of this division the names are 
unknown, but neither they nor the foregoing have yet 
appeared on monuments. 
The futhorc I have placed at the head of the list is 
certainly of Northumbrian origin; the five following are 
preserved in MSS. written in the south of England, and 
the names of the runes belong to a southern dialect, yet the 
runes are such as were used in Northumbria from the 7th until 
the 10 th century, and seem to have been peculiar to the 
Angle kingdoms. We have traces of the use of other futhorcs 
in other districts and by other tribes, but with the exception 
of the Thames knife, (if that be English, and not Frank) 
none so complete as these. 
Now these futhorcs approve themselves as indigenous to 
our language by their capability of expressing soimds 
which the Roman abecedarium does not. The imcertainty 
of English orthography, the confusion of sounds attached 
to difierent letters, and the irregular pronunciation of our 
modern language, are all attributable to the circumstance 
that our forefathers accepted from the missionaries of the 
Christian faith an abecedarium by no means suited to 
their tongue in place of their old futhorc. Long ago the 
fact, that at least nine letters are required, besides those 
we have, in order that each may express a single deter- 
minate sound, was observed by Mr. Sheridan, whose 
scheme of the sounds which our language embraces is 
nearly as follows : — 
r ai a3 e^ e^ i^ i^ 
hat, hate, hall, harm, bet, beet, bit, bite. 
lo vowels 
o' o^ o^ u^ u^ w y 
Lnot, note, noon, cut, cube, short oo, short ee. 
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