CONTENTS. PAGE I. The Ogham-Runes and El-Mushajjar: a Study. By RICHARD F. BURTON, Esq., M.R.A.S. II. The Earthly Paradise of European Mythology. By C. F. KEARY, Esq., M.A., F.S.A.. III. The Rubens Centenary and the Antwerp Art Congress. By C. H. E. CARMICHAEL, Esq., M.A. IV. On the History, System, and Varieties of Turkish Poetry, illustrated by selections in the Original, and in English Paraphrase, with a notice of the Islamic doctrine of the Immortality of woman's soul in the Future State. By J. W. REDHOUSE, Esq., M.R.A.S., Hon. M.R.S.L., etc. V. On an Unrecorded Event in the Life of Sir Thomas 85 . 160 173 203 217 233 VII. The Ethnology of Modern Midian. By RICHARD F. 249 XI. Early Italian Dramatic Literature. By R. DAVEY, XII. Praxiteles and the Hermes with the Dionysos- President's Address List of Members. PAGE 400 XIII. The Mythology of the Eddas: How far of Teutonic XIV. The Popular Literature of Old Japan. By C. PFOUNDES, Esq., M.R.A.S., M.R.S.L. 591 623 XVI. On the Roll containing illustrations of the Life of Saint Guthlac in the British Museum. By WALTER DE GRAY BIRCH, Esq., F.S.A., Hon. Librarian, R.S.L. 639 XVII. On Waxed Tablets recently found at Sempeii. By XVIII. The Wax Tablets of Pompeii, and the Bronze Table of Aljustrel. By C. H. E. CARMICHAEL, M.A.. XIX. Notes on the Survey of Western Palestine executed 705 TRANSACTIONS OF THE Royal Society of Literature. THE OGHAM-RUNES AND EL-MUSHAJJAR: A STUDY. BY RICHARD F. BURTON, M. R.A.S. (Read January 22, 1879.) PART I. The Ogham-Runes. IN treating this first portion of my subject, the Ogham-Runes, I have made free use of the materials collected by Dr. Charles Graves, Prof. John Rhys, and other students, ending it with my own work in the Orkney Islands. The Ogham character, the "fair writing" of ancient Irish literature, is called the Bobel-loth, Bethluis or Bethluisnion, from its initial letters, like the Græco-Phoenician "Alphabeta," and the AraboHebrew "Abjad." It may briefly be described as formed by straight or curved strokes, of various lengths, disposed either perpendicularly or obliquely to an angle of the substance upon which the letters were incised, punched, or rubbed. In monuments supposed to be more modern, the letters were traced, VOL. XII. B not on the edge, but upon the face of the recipient surface; the latter was originally wood, staves and tablets; then stone, rude or worked; and, lastly, metal, silver, and rarely iron. The place of the bevel was often taken by a real or an imaginary perpendicular, or horizontal, bisecting the shortest notches representing vowel-cuts; or, more generally, by a Fleasgh, stem-line, trunk-line, or Rune-Staff. According to the Rev. Charles Graves, "The continuous stemline along which the Ogham letters are ranged is termed the ridge (num); each short stroke, perpendicular or oblique to it, is called a twig (plea; in the plural flearga)." That authority also opines that the stem-line, as a rule or guide, like the Devanagari-Hindú, was borrowed from the Runic Staf." 66 The "Tract on Oghams" and Irish grammatical treatises2 contain some eighty different modifications of the Ogham alphabet, while Wormius enumerates twelve varieties of the Runes proper-most of them mere freaks of fancy, like similar prelusions in the East. The following is the first on the list, and it is certainly that which derives most directly from the old Orient home. "Paper on the Ogham Character.” Irish Academy, vol. iv, part 2, p. 360. Proceedings of the Royal 2 The "Tract" is in the "Book of Ballymote," written about the ninth century, and assuming its present form in the fourteenth. The treatise is the "Precepta Doctorum" (Upaicept or Upsichetna neigeas or n'eiger), the Primer (Precepts) of the Bards, composed in the ninth or tenth century, and found in the "Book of Lecan," a manuscript dating from A.D. 1417. It is "said to have been composed in the first century." (p. xxviii., John O'Donovan's Irish Grammar, Dublin, 1845.) 3 See "Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters explained," &c., by Joseph Hammer. London, 1806. |