193 
W lias the same form nearly as its Greek correspondent, 
but a different value. 
Q, H, J (Y), U, HW, have different forms and values. 
W corresponds to the Teutonic tccu, a sound which the 
Greek alphabet had not ; R, F, and O are already familiar 
runes ; Q and U we have in the S. Gallen futhorc, and in the 
so-called Marcomannic alphabet ; S and J we have on some 
Scandinavian monuments ; and HW on a spear from Munche- 
berg, in Brandenburg. Besides B and I, then, which are 
common to the Greek and Eunic systems, we have eight 
characters in this alphabet which are certainly runes (in a 
roimded form), and A, D, and TH, may be presumed to be 
derived from a futhorc now lost. It is true that R and S 
resemble their Latin correspondents ; but this alphabet is so 
manifestly formed on the Greek model, that I cannot believe 
in any other than a Gothic origin for the characters which 
are not Greek. To my mind they are the remains of an old 
futhorc which this alphabet supplanted. 
Again, the fragment of Hildebrand's lay, written in the 
8th or 9th century, in the very heart of Germany, (most 
probably in the monastery of Fulda, in Hesse), in a dialect 
which ma}" be considered Frankish, but with many features 
of resemblance to the old high German, contains, in its fifty- 
three lines, forty-one recurrences of the rune wen, (see some of 
^ts varieties in PI. 1. 79.), five of the Latin uu instead of it, 
and one of a (which also is used for /) ; and the Weissenbrun 
hymn, in twenty-one short lines, four times expresses the 
syllable ga by the rune ior. The force of these facts cannot 
be denied. These runes are relics of a system which preceded 
the abecedarium, in use among the tribes who occupied Hesse 
and Franconia in the 8th century. 
There is also another very important fact bearing on the 
subject which must not be passed over. Gregory of Tours 
says of Chilperic, King of the Franks of Soissons, a.d. 561 
