[10] Under the word orc tréith.
[11] The classical reader need hardly be reminded of the striking resemblance between this and the σήματα λυγρά which, according to Homer, Prœtus gave the unsuspecting Bellerophon to bring to the King of Lycia, γράψας ἐν πἰνακι πτυκτῷ θυμοφθόρα πολλά.
[12] The "alphabet" laid before Fiacc, however, was not a list of letters, but a kind of brief catechism, in Latin "Elementa." St. Patrick is said to have written a number of these "alphabets" with his own hand.
[13] The "Confession" and Epistles attributed to St. Patrick are, by Whitley Stokes, Todd, Ussher, and almost all other authorities, considered genuine. Recently J.V. Pflugk-Harttung, in an article in the "Neuer Heidelberger Jahrbuch," Jahrgang iii., Heft. 1., 1893, has tried to show by internal evidence that the "Confession" and Epistle, especially the former, are a little later than St. Patrick's time, and he relies strongly on this passage, saying that it is difficult to imagine how St. Patrick came by the idea that a man could bring him "innumerable letters from the heathen Ireland of that time, where, except for Ogams and inscribed stones (ausser Oghams und Skulpturzeichen), the art of writing was as yet unknown." But seeing that Christian missionaries were almost certainly at work in Munster as early as the third century this contention is ridiculous. It is noteworthy, however, that even this critic seems to believe in the antiquity of the Ogam characters. As to his main contention that the "Confession" is not the work of Patrick, Jubainville writes, "Il ne m'a pas convaincu" (Revue Celtique, vol. xiv. p. 215), and M. L. Duchesne, commenting on Zimmer's view of St. Patrick's nebulousness, writes, "Contestir l'authenticité de la Confession et de la lettre à Coroticus me semble très aventuré" (Ibid., vol. xv. p. 188), and Thurneysen also entirely refuses his credence.
[14] Preface to "Three Old Irish Glossaries," p. lv. Zeuss had already commented on the Ogams found in the St. Gall codex of Priscian, and written thus of them, "Figuræ ergo vel potius liniæ ogamicæ non diversæ ab his quæ notantur a grammaticis hibernicis, in usu jam in hoc vetusto codice, quidni etiam inde a longinquis temporibus?" There are eight Ogam sentences in a St. Gall MS. of the ninth century which have been published by Nigra in his "Manoscritto irlandese di S. Gallo."
[15] See above, ch. V, note [13]. See O'Donovan's Grammar, p. xxviii, for the original of the passage from the Book of Ballymote.
[16] Translated by Rhys in his "Hibbert Lectures," from Bekker's edition, No. 7, and Dindorf's, No. 55.
[17] The Gauls assimilated their pantheon to those of the Greeks and Romans in so far as they could, and as the Greek gods are by no means always the equivalents of the Roman gods with whom popular opinion equated them, still less were of course the Gaulish; and this is a good case in point, for Ogmios has evidently nothing of a Hercules about him, though the Gauls tried to make him the equivalent of Hercules by giving him the classical club and lion's skin, yet his attributes are perfectly different.
[18] Grian-aineach, or "of the sunny countenance." See O'Curry MS. Mat., p. 249. Ogma was, according to some accounts, brother of Breas, who held the regency amongst the Tuatha De Danann for seven years, while Nuada was getting his silver hand.
[19] Leabhra, léigheadh, sgríobhadh, litreacha, pinn, meamram.