Minor Notes.
Iona.—The ancient name of this celebrated island was I (an island), or I-Columbkille (the island of Columba of the Churches). In all the ancient tombstones still existing in the island, it is called nothing but Hy; and I have no doubt that its modern name of Iona is a corruption, arising from mistaking u for n. In the very ancient copy of Adamnan's Life of St. Columbkille, formerly belonging to the monastery of Reichenau (Augia Dives), and now preserved in the town library of Schaffhausen, which I had an opportunity of examining very carefully last summer, the name is written everywhere, beyond the possibility of doubt, Ioua, which was evidently an attempt to give a power of Latinised declension to the ancient Celtic I. It was pronounced I-wa (i.e. Ee-wa). Who first made the blunder of changing the u into n?
J. H. Todd.
Trin. Coll. Dublin.
Inscriptions in Parochial Registers.—Very quaint and pithy mottoes are sometimes prefixed to parochial registers. I know not whether any communications on this subject are to be found in your pages. The following are examples, and may perhaps elicit from your readers additional information.
Cherry-Hinton, Cambridgeshire:
"Hic puer ætatem, hic Vir sponsalia noscat,
Hic decessorum funera quisque sciat."
Ruyton of the Eleven Towns, Salop:
"No flatt'ry here, where to be born and die,