CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 IN MEMORY " 
 
 OF 
 
 BARRY HOWARD, 1936 
 HART LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PD 2014.T24 
 Greeks and Goths :a study on «he runes / 
 
 3 1924 006 284 388 
 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://archive.org/details/cu31924006284388 
 
GREEKS AND GOTHS 
 
 A STUDY ON THE RUNES. 
 
 BY 
 
 ISAAC TAYLOR, M.A., LL.D. 
 
 RECTOR Or SETTEINGTON, 
 ATTTHOB OF ' WOEDS AHD PLACES,' 'ETETTSCAK RESEARCHES,' ETC. ETC. 
 
 1L o n tr o n : 
 
 
 MACMILLAN AND 
 
 CO 
 
 1879. 
 
 
 [All rights reserved.'] 
 Hi 
 
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PD 
 
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 $JJ UJCL±l 
 
 OXFORD: 
 
 E. PICKAED HALL, M.A., AND J. H. STAOT, 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In following out certain inquiries as to the 
 history and connection of early Alphabets, it 
 became necessary that I should make myself 
 acquainted with what had been written on the 
 origin of the Bunes. It speedily became mani- 
 fest that none of the current theories on the 
 subject were sufficient to explain the facts. A 
 re-examination of the conditions of the problem 
 gradually led to the wholly unexpected con- 
 clusions which are set forth in the following 
 pages. 
 
 I have thought it -best to publish these results 
 in a separate form, instead of including them in 
 a larger forthcoming work on the History of the 
 Alphabet, because it seemed needful, in putting 
 forth a theory so entirely novel, to state the 
 argument with greater fullness of detail, and in 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 a more technical form, than would be desirable or 
 proportionate in a more comprehensive work. 
 
 When this book was ready for the press I 
 accidentally discovered that Bask, the greatest 
 of Scandinavian scholars, believed that the view 
 which I have advocated would ultimately prove 
 to be the true solution of the problem of the 
 Eunes. I do not find, however, that he ever 
 worked out the details of the theory or even 
 formally propounded it. 
 
 I have included in the volume a subsidiary 
 investigation into the Origin of the Oghams, 
 which are intimately connected with the Eunes. 
 
 In expressing my obligations to Professor 
 Stephens, and my admiration of his monumental 
 work, I am bound to acknowledge that his un- 
 wearied toil and his minute accuracy have made 
 easy a task which would otherwise have been 
 difficult, if not impossible. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 § 1. The Futhorcs. 
 
 The Runes. — The various Futhorcs — Gothic — Anglian — Scandinavian. — 
 The Mceso-Gothic Alphabet . . .... p. I 
 
 § 2. The Dated Monuments. 
 
 Buzeo Torque. — Nordenhoff Broach Vi Moss Tools. — Nydam Moss 
 
 Arrows. — Charnay Broach. — Vadstena Bracteate. — Ruthwell Cross. 
 — Date of the earliest Inscriptions . . . . . p. 7 
 
 § 3. The Phoenician Hypothesis. 
 
 Opinions of Stephens, Lenormant, Peile, Dieterich. — Difficulties of the 
 Hypothesis p. 15 
 
 § 4. The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 Its Advocates. — Chronological and Geographical Difficulties. — The 
 Retrograde and Boustrophedon Inscriptions. — Inadequacy of Dr. 
 Kirchhoff's Argument. — Principles of Alphabetic Change. — Un- 
 scientific method of Dr. Wimmer. — Detailed Examination of his 
 Argument. — The Guttural Test ... . . p. 19 
 
 § 5. The Greek Hypothesis. 
 
 Evidence of Tacitus. — A priori probability of the Greek Hypothesis. — 
 A preliminary Test . . . . . . . . p. 33 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 a more technical form, than would be desirable or 
 proportionate in a more comprehensive work. 
 
 When this book was ready for the press I 
 accidentally discovered that Kask, the greatest 
 of Scandinavian scholars, believed that the view 
 which I have advocated would ultimately prove 
 to be the true solution of the problem of the 
 Runes. I do not find, however, that he ever 
 worked out the details of the theory or even 
 formally propounded it. 
 
 I have included in the volume a subsidiary 
 investigation into the Origin of the Oghams, 
 which are intimately connected with the Eunes. 
 
 In expressing my obligations to Professor 
 Stephens, and my admiration of his monumental 
 work, I am bound to acknowledge that his un- 
 wearied toil and his minute accuracy have made 
 easy a task which would otherwise have been 
 difficult, if not impossible. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 § 1. The Futhorcs. 
 
 The Kiraes. — Tie variouB Futhorcs — Gothic — Anglian — Scandinavian. — 
 The Moeso-Gothic Alphabet . . .... p. i 
 
 § 2. The Dated Monuments. 
 
 Buzeo Torque. — Nordenhoff Broach Vi Moss Tools. — Nydam Moss 
 
 Arrows. — Charnay Broach. — Vadstena Bracteate. — Ruthwell Cross. 
 — Date of the earliest Inscriptions . . . . p. 7 
 
 § 3. The Phoenician Hypothesis. 
 
 Opinions of Stephens, Lenormant, Peile, Dieterich. — Difficulties of the 
 Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . p. 15 
 
 § i. The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 Its Advocates. — Chronological and Geographical Difficulties. — The 
 Retrograde and Boustrophedon Inscriptions. — Inadequacy of Dr. 
 KirchhofTs Argument. — Principles of Alphabetic Change. — Un- 
 scientific method of Dr. Wimmer. — Detailed Examination of his 
 Argument, — The Guttural Test . . . . . . p. 19 
 
 § 5. The Greek Hypothesis. 
 
 Evidence of Tacitus. — A priori probability of the Greek Hypothesis. — 
 A preliminary Test P- 33 
 
vi Contents. 
 
 § 6. The Chronological Conditions. 
 The Chronological Tests. — The Boustrophedon Test. — The Paheogra- 
 phieal Test.— Characteristics of the Alphabet of the Isles.— Influence 
 of the Persian Invasion on the Thracian Alphabet . • P- 37 
 
 § 7. The Geographical Conditions. 
 The Thracian and Euxine Colonies. — The Getse. — The Goths. — Position 
 and Extent of the Gothic Realm. — Commerce of the Dnieper. — 
 Evidence of Herodotus. — Olbia and Gerrhos . . . p. 43 
 
 § 8. The Thkacian Alphabet. 
 
 Thracian Coins. — Alphabet of the Mother Cities of the Colonies in 
 Thrace. — The Three Stages of the Greek Alphabet . . p. 51 
 
 § 9. The Fdthoeo and the Alphabet. 
 Phonetic Changes. — Laws of Alphabetic Development and Arrest . p. 56 
 
 § 10. The Liquids and Sibilants. 
 
 The I Rune. — The tailed r. — -Resemblances between the Thracian and 
 Italian Alphabets. — The m and n RuneB. — Change by Correlation. 
 — The s Rune P- 57 
 
 § 11. The Vowels. 
 
 Disuse of Alpha. — Developments of Epsilon. — Iota. — Omega. — The 
 Twelfth Rune. — Developments of Eta. — Unstable Letters. — Early 
 forms of the e Rune. — The Aspirate. — The Thirteenth Rune . p. 61 
 
 § 12. The Mutes. 
 Classification of the Mutes . . P- 7o 
 
 § 13. The Dentals. 
 The Lautverschiebung. — Grimm's Law. — The Chronological Hypothesis. 
 How did Debilitation begin? . . . . . . • P- 71 
 
Contents. vii 
 
 § 14. The Labials. 
 
 Disuse of Pi. — Gothic Labials developed out of Beta. — Parallel de- 
 velopment of Names and Forms. — The Moeso-Gothio Labials. — 
 Stages of the Development . . . . . . • P- 74 
 
 ! § 15. The Gutturals. 
 
 Debilitation of Gutturals. — The Gamma Runes. — Evolution of the ng 
 
 Rune The Koppa Runes. — Thrace and Italy. — The Ilix Rune. 
 
 — Wen and Cen p. 79 
 
 § 16. The Later Runes. 
 
 The Runes superseded by the Latin Letters. — Gradual Disuse of Runes 
 in Denmark, Sweden, and England. — Simplification of the Scandi- 
 navian Futhorc. — Elaboration of the Anglian Futhorc. — Later 
 Developments of the Epsilon and Gamma Runes. — Development 
 of r final. — The New Runes for m and h. — The Stan Rune . p. 88 
 
 § 17. The Order of the Runes. 
 
 Survivals of the Order of the Greek Letters. — Causes of Alphabetic Dis- 
 location. — The Arabic and Syriac Alphabets. — Attempt to account 
 for the Order of the Runes . . . . . . p. 99 
 
 § 18. The Oghams. 
 
 Runic Inscriptions replaced by Oghams in Wales and Ireland. — 
 Geographical distribution of Oghams. — Date of Oghams. — Their 
 Traditional arrangement. — The Oghams derived from the Runes. 
 — The Bethluisnion. — Comparison of Rune and Ogham Names. — 
 The ng Ogham. — Restoration of Primitive Values and Arrangement 
 of the Oghams. — The Tree Runes. — The Ogham Trees. — Principle 
 of Ogham construction. — Classification of Runes. — Correspondence 
 of Ogham and Runic Classes. — The Lautverschiebung. — Oghams 
 invented in Wales. — Date of Scandinavian Invasions. — The Tuatha 
 De Danann. — The Jutes p. 108 
 
GREEKS AND GOTHS 
 
 A STUDY ON THE RUNES. 
 
 § 1. The Futhorcs. 
 
 At the time when the Eoman alphabet was in- 
 troduced by Christian missionaries into Northern 
 Europe some of the Teutonic nations had been 
 for several centuries in possession of a peculiar 
 alphabet of their own. This ancient alphabet was 
 chiefly used by the Scandinavians, the Northum- 
 brians, and the Goths. The characters are called 
 Runes, and the alphabet bears the name of the 
 Futhorc, from the first six runes, 
 
 r, n, t>, #, ft, y, /, «, tu, , r, c . 
 
 The one unsolved problem in the History of 
 the Alphabet is the origin of these Runes. That 
 they should have been independently invented by 
 the Teutons is a solution which must be regarded 
 
 ft* B 
 
The Futhorcs. 
 
 as quite out of the question. The history of the 
 invention of alphabetic writing shows the enor- 
 mous difficulty of such an undertaking. It was 
 only through the slow developments of many 
 centuries that the united genius of the Phoeni- 
 cians and the Greeks, the two most cultured 
 races of the South, succeeded at last in elabo- 
 rating a pure alphabet out of the cumbrous 
 picture writing of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. 
 That an equivalent result should have been at- 
 tained off hand by any semi-barbarous Teutonic 
 tribe is quite incredible. There are, moreover, 
 such striking resemblances between several of 
 the runes and the corresponding letters of various 
 Mediterranean alphabets, that the mathematical 
 chances against such a series of accidental co- 
 incidences are absolutely overwhelming. On these 
 grounds it has been universally admitted that 
 the Eunes must, in some unknown manner, have 
 been derived from that one great parent alphabet 
 to which modern research has affiliated almost 
 every other alphabet of the world — Ethiopic, 
 Arabic and Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Etruscan, 
 Indian and Tibetan, Mongol and Malay. 
 
The Gothic Futhorc. 
 
 Eunic inscriptions have been found scattered 
 over a vast region extending from the Danube 
 to the Orkneys. The most ancient of these in- 
 scriptions are earlier in date by at least a 
 thousand years than the most modern. During 
 this long period a constant development was 
 going on, and hence we find, as was to be ex- 
 pected, that the runes of different countries 
 and of different periods present very considerable 
 variations. They may all however be classified 
 into three main divisions — the Gothic, the 
 Anglian, and the Scandinavian. The charac- 
 teristic runes of these three classes are here 
 tabulated for handy reference. 
 
 In this Table the first column, which is styled 
 for convenience the Gothic Futhorc, contains the 
 twenty- four primitive runes, which are used 
 indifferently in all countries in the earliest in- 
 scriptions. These early inscriptions, which are 
 about 200 in number, range from the third to 
 the sixth centuries of our era. Twenty- three 
 of these runes appear in their order, as a Futhorc, 
 on a golden Bracteate or medal, from Vadstena, 
 in East Gothland (Sweden), which may be assigned 
 
 B 2 
 
The Futhorcs. 
 
 Table of Eunes. 
 
 Names. 
 
 Values. 
 
 RUNES. 
 
 JV 
 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 
 
 Gothic 
 
 Anglian 
 
 Scandi- 
 navian. 
 
 Alphabet of 
 Ulphilas. 
 
 fech, feh, fe 
 
 / 
 
 ? P 
 
 l V 
 
 V 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 ur, hur 
 
 u 
 
 A n 
 
 h n 
 
 n 
 
 n 
 
 ou 
 
 thorn 
 
 th 
 
 D > |> 
 
 ► 
 
 p 
 
 & 
 
 5 
 
 asc, sesc, os 
 
 a, as, o 
 
 & * 
 
 r* p 
 
 * 
 
 A 
 
 a 
 
 rad, rat 
 
 r 
 
 R R 
 
 i* 
 
 R /K 
 
 K 
 
 p 
 
 cen, kaun 
 
 c,k 
 
 < A 
 
 k 
 
 Y 
 
 K 
 
 K 
 
 gebo, gifu 
 
 g 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 
 r 
 
 Y 
 
 wen 
 
 V, w 
 
 P 
 
 ? 
 
 
 Vpo 
 
 v,hv 
 
 hegl, hagal 
 
 h 
 
 NHNH 
 
 N 
 
 * 
 
 h 
 
 h 
 
 nyd, nod 
 
 n 
 
 + * 
 
 + 
 
 + l> 
 
 N 
 
 V 
 
 is 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ger, yr, ar 
 
 y,g',j,a 
 
 1h5 
 
 <t> 
 
 A A 
 
 9 
 
 j 
 
 hie, ih, eoh 
 
 ih, i, eo 
 
 \nA 
 
 vA 
 
 
 X 
 
 c 
 
 peorth, perc 
 
 P 
 
 & 
 
 K C 
 
 K 
 
 n 
 
 IT 
 
 ilix, calc 
 
 a, t, k, x 
 
 r 
 
 Y 
 
 
 qo 
 
 q 
 
 sigil 
 
 s 
 
 s 
 
 h 
 
 h 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 tir 
 
 t 
 
 t 
 
 t 
 
 t 1 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 berc, berith 
 
 6 
 
 * 
 
 & 
 
 B 
 
 K 
 
 P 
 
 hsec, ech, eh 
 
 e 
 
 n m 
 
 M 
 
 
 e 
 
 V 
 
 man 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
 M 
 
 ? Y 
 
 M 
 
 f* 
 
 lagu 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
 A 
 
 X 
 
 ing 
 
 »g 
 
 o <> 
 
 J? 
 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 dag, dseg 
 
 d 
 
 S DO 
 
 M 
 
 
 <J> 
 
 6 
 
 othil 
 
 o, ce 
 
 *R 
 
 * 
 
 
 K 
 
 <o 
 
The Anglian Futhorc. 
 
 to the middle of the fourth century a.d. Nine- 
 teen of them appear also as a Futhorc on a 
 fifth century broach, found at Charnay in Bur- 
 gundy. 
 
 The second column contains the corresponding 
 runes of the Anglian Futhorc, which is used 
 on the Ruthwell Cross and on several Northum- 
 brian monuments of the seventh and following 
 centuries. It is given as a Futhorc in sundry 
 MSS. of the eighth and ninth centuries, the 
 earliest form appearing on a sword of the sixth 
 or seventh century, which was found in the 
 Thames, near London. The Anglian Futhorc 
 usually contains from four to twelve supplement- 
 ary runes, which are either survivals or develop- 
 ments of the primitive Gothic runes. The most 
 important of these additional runes are — ¥■> a > 
 P, « ; ^, o ; FfT, y ; Y, ea and q ; y , k 1 M, st 
 and ss. 
 
 In the third column is given the latest, or 
 Scandinavian Futhorc. It attained its final 
 form about the tenth century, and contains only 
 sixteen runes. We find it given as a Futhorc 
 on a slab in the Picts' House at Maeshowe in 
 
The Futhorcs. 
 
 Orkney, and on a twelfth century font at Boerse 
 in Denmark. Some 2000 runic inscriptions, nine- 
 tenths probably of the whole number extant, are 
 written in this Scandinavian Futhorc, which was 
 used in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Orkney, 
 Cumberland, and the Isle of Man. 
 
 The fourth column contains the M<eso-Gothic 
 Alphabet, which was compiled in the fourth 
 century by Ulphilas, Bishop of the Goths. It is 
 evidently based upon the ancient Gothic Futhorc, 
 with two or three additions and several modifica- 
 tions derived from the contemporary Byzantine 
 Alphabet. 
 
 All the evidence, internal and external, goes to 
 prove that the Gothic Futhorc exhibits the earliest 
 forms of the runes. If we compare it with the 
 later Futhorcs, Anglian or Scandinavian, it will 
 be seen that many of the original runes, such as 
 Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 17, 18, 21, remained almost 
 unchanged, some, Nos. 7, 8, 13, 23, fell into dis- 
 use; others, Nos. 4, 14, 15, 22, were modified 
 in form or value ; while in a few cases, Nos. 
 9, 12, 20, new developments have replaced the 
 ancient characters. 
 
The Buzeo Torque. 
 
 § 2. The Dated Monuments. 
 
 It is manifest that any investigation into the 
 origin of the runes must start from the Gothic 
 Futhorc, and it consequently becomes a matter 
 of great importance to ascertain as accurately as 
 possible the dates of the earlier inscriptions. It 
 will therefore be needful to devote a few pre- 
 liminary paragraphs to a summary of the evidence 
 on which the dates of certain standard inscrip- 
 tions have been approximately determined. 
 
 From the historical point of view the most 
 important runic monument yet discovered is a 
 massive gold torque, which is now in the Museum 
 at Bucharest. This torque was found in 1838 
 at Buzeo in Wallachia, and formed part of a 
 treasure buried within a ring-mound, which seems 
 to have been the site of a heathen temple. The 
 intrinsic value of the gold was about £4000 *. 
 The torque bears an inscription in unmistakable 
 runes of the early type, which reads — 
 
 X At M»l *M H M H X, 
 ' Dedicated to the temple of the Goths/ Here, 
 
 1 Zacher, Das Gothische Alphabet, p. 47. 
 
The Dated Monuments. 
 
 then, we have a very definite date. In the second 
 century a portion of the Goths left their early 
 homes east of the Vistula, and by the time of 
 Caracalla had reached the plains of the Lower 
 Danube. The torque evidently belongs to the 
 heathen period. In the second half of the third 
 century the Moesian Goths were converted by As- 
 colius ; in 325 Theophilus, one of their bishops, 
 attended the council of Nice ; and not long after- 
 wards the Gothic runes were superseded by the 
 alphabet of Ulphilas, who was born in 311. The 
 Buzeo torque must belong to the period when 
 the Goths were recent settlers in Dacia and still 
 heathens. The great intrinsic value of the gold 
 points to the dedication of the spoils of some 
 great triumph — the plunder it may be of the 
 camp of the Emperor Decius, or the ransom of 
 the wealthy city of Marcianopolis. The most 
 probable date seems to be between 210 and 
 250 A.D. 
 
 Another dated monument of nearly equal im- 
 portance comes also from the region of the 
 Danube. The Roman station of Drusomagus, 
 now Druisheim, near Augsburg, was established 
 
The Nordenhoff Broach. 
 
 by Tiberius, and was finally destroyed in the 
 convulsions of the fifth century. At the neigh- 
 bouring village of Nordenhoff, the cemetery of 
 the third Italian legion has been discovered, and 
 362 graves have been excavated. In these graves 
 were found no less than forty- six Roman coins, 
 ranging in date from Augustus to Valens. The 
 interments, with few exceptions, are pre-Christian, 
 and extend from the year 200 a.d. to 400. In 
 one of these graves, along with many valuable 
 articles of jewellery, was found a large silver 
 broach, bearing on the back three separate runic 
 inscriptions of ownership or donation. The names 
 of the four successive owners of this broach, 
 three men and a woman, are all of the Low 
 German or Gothic type. The grave was that 
 of a woman, probably the Gothic wife of some 
 Eoman officer. The broach can hardly have been 
 deposited in the grave later than the year 400, 
 probably it was much earlier, and, allowing for 
 the four successive ownerships, the earliest of the 
 three inscriptions carries us much further back. 
 Judging from the character of the runes, two 
 of the inscriptions seem to be earlier, and one 
 
io TJie Dated Monuments. 
 
 later, than the inscription on the Buzeo torque. 
 The most probable date seems to be between 
 2 co and 300 a.d. 
 
 There are also two dated 'finds' of the early 
 Iron age, from Danish peat begs, which were 
 formerly shallow lakes. From the Ti Moss, in 
 Fyn, was exhumed a collection of 3000 articles, 
 such as swords, spear-heads, tools, and combs, 
 evidently the hoard of some chief or trader, 
 which was lost or hidden in the ancient lake. 
 A bone comb and a wooden tool-handle were 
 inscribed with the names of their former owners. 
 A silver coin of Faustina the younger, who died 
 in 175 A.D. gives us an approximate date, say 
 200 to 300 A.D. 
 
 The other 'find,' from the Xydam Moss, in 
 Jutland, is of about the same date. It consisted 
 of the contents of three war ships, sunk in storm 
 or battle. The skeletons of the horses still re- 
 tained the iron bits between their jaws. Along 
 with arrows inscribed with runes were bronze 
 broaches, silver clasps, iron swords, knives, and 
 spears, together T^ith thirty-four Koman coins 
 dating from 69 to 217 a. d. 
 
The Charnay Broach. 1 1 
 
 Second only in interest to the Buzeo torque 
 is the silver-gilt broach which was found in 1857, 
 together with a great quantity of ornaments and 
 weapons, on the battle-field of Charnay, at the 
 confluence of the Sa6ne and the Doubs. It was 
 here that the Burgundians were defeated with 
 immense slaughter by the Franks under Clovis. 
 This broach, which no doubt belonged to one 
 of the slain chieftains of the Burgundian host, 
 bears, in addition to a runic inscription of owner- 
 ship, a Futhorc, of which the first nineteen runes 
 are legible. The Burgundians were closely con- 
 nected with the Goths. Pliny associates Goths 
 and Burgundians as dwelling near the Vistula, 
 and at a later period we find Burgundians shar- 
 ing the fortunes of their Gothic kinsmen inMcesia, 
 Italy, Illyria, and Asia Minor. The Burgundian 
 Futhorc on the Charnay broach may therefore 
 be regarded as essentially a Gothic alphabet of 
 a date not later than the end of the fifth century, 
 say 450 to 480 A.D. Great importance must be 
 attached to the Charnay runes, not only because 
 of their very precise and definite date, but 
 because, though they are substantially identical 
 
12 The Dated Montiments. 
 
 with the runes on the Buzeo torque, they exhibit 
 in several cases forms which are distinctively 
 more modern— notably M instead of H , and \) 
 instead of A. The forms of the runes in the 
 Futhorc of the Vadstena bracteate, already re- 
 ferred to, are obviously of intermediate date. 
 Taking the date of the Buzeo torque as about 
 2:0 a.d., and that of the Charnay broach as 
 about 460, we may with some confidence assign 
 the Vadstena bracteate to the year 350 or there- 
 abouts 1 . 
 
 But these few runic inscriptions to which, by 
 some fortunate accident, it has been possible to 
 assign approximate dates, are by no means the 
 most ancient which we possess. The most primi- 
 tive forms of the runes occur upon undated 
 monuments. From Jutland we have the Thors- 
 
 1 Some other dated monuments are of use in enabling us 
 to trace the subsequent developments of the Runic writing. 
 Such are the Collingham Cross, erected to the memory of 
 King Oswin, murdered at Collingham, on August 20th, 650 ; 
 the Bewcastle Cross, a memorial of King Alcfrith, who died 
 in 670; and last, though not least, the magnificent Ruth- 
 well Cross, on which Csedmon inscribed, not later than 680, 
 a portion of his Dream of the Holy Rood. 
 
Prehistoric Inscriptions. 13 
 
 bjerg Moss weapons and the Dalby diadem ; and 
 from Norway the Tune stone and the Frohaug 
 bronze, all of which bear inscriptions which may 
 well belong to the second, or even the first, cen- 
 tury of our era. In these inscriptions we find, 
 among other signs of great antiquity, the runes 
 n, E3, and <{>, which are the remote prototypes 
 of the third century runes M, D4, and V. 
 
 The foregoing evidence establishes the existence, 
 at a very early date, of a definite runic alphabet, 
 which must have been a common possession of 
 the Gothic tribes before the commencement of 
 their dispersion. Now the southward movement 
 of the Goths down the valley of the Dnieper 
 began before the end of the second century, 
 while their northward migration to the shores 
 of Sweden must be assigned to a much earlier 
 period. 
 
 In connection with this question of date it is 
 important to notice that this ancient and wide- 
 spread Gothic alphabet is wonderfully firm, defi- 
 nite, and uniform. To decipher the inscription 
 on the golden torque of the Mcesian Goths by 
 the help of the alphabet stamped on the golden 
 
14 The Dated Monuments. 
 
 Bracteate from Swedish Gothland, is as easy as 
 it would be to read an Australian tombstone by 
 the aid of a spelling-book from the United States. 
 Distant colonies employ the common alphabet of 
 the mother country. 
 
 That the runic alphabet of the third century 
 should be so widely diffused, and "so uniform in 
 its character, indicates a considerable previous 
 antiquity. But these early runes are not the 
 letters of any other known alphabet. The dated 
 runes of the third century must already have 
 had a long history, and must have undergone 
 great developments and modifications. Their 
 resemblances to the letters of the Mediterranean 
 alphabets are sufficiently close to establish the 
 fact of a common parentage, while the dissem- 
 blances are such as to demand a considerable 
 period for their evolution. Just as the geologist 
 postulates his needful milleniums for the develop- 
 ment of the Horse from the Hipparion, so the 
 student of Alphabets claims at once a period 
 of some centuries as requisite for the growth 
 of the forms of the earliest extant runes out 
 of any other known Alphabet. The evolution of 
 
Early Theories. 1 5 
 
 the Greek Alphabet from the Semitic, of the 
 Arabic from the Aramaic, of the Latin from 
 the Greek, are processes which afford some sort 
 of measure of the time that would be required 
 for the development of the Gothic Futhorc out 
 of any other alphabet — Greek, Latin, Phoenician, 
 or Carthaginian. 
 
 After carefully weighing the whole evidence 
 before us, it may, I think, be affirmed that the 
 origin of the Eunes must be placed a century 
 or two, at the very least, before the commence- 
 ment of the Christian era. 
 
 § 3. The Phcenician Hypothesis. 
 
 We are now prepared, by this preliminary 
 investigation, to discuss the possible sources 
 from which the Goths could have obtained the 
 elements of their ancient Alphabet. We may 
 dismiss, to begin with, the pre-scientific belief 
 of the last century, that some Scandinavian 
 Cadmus — ' the celebrated Woden/ as one writer 
 ingenuously suggests — either brought the runes 
 from Asia, or constructed a new alphabet on 
 
1 6 The Phoenician Hypothesis. 
 
 eclectic principles, borrowing some letters irom 
 the Greeks, some from the Eomans, others from 
 the Hebrews, and inventing the remainder as it 
 pleased him. 
 
 At the present time the most generally ac- 
 cepted opinion seems to be that the runes were 
 derived directly from the Phoenician alphabet. 
 This view is upheld by the great authority of 
 Professor Stephens 1 , and is supported by the 
 still greater name of Lenormarit, who specifically 
 derives the Kunes from the Sidonian type of the 
 Phoenician Alphabet 2 . Mr. Peile, the most recent 
 writer on the subject 3 , soberly sums up the pre- 
 valent view in these words : : It may be asserted 
 with some confidence that if the runes were 
 genuine Alphabets (which there seems no reason 
 to deny) they must have been derived from the 
 Phoenicians in process of commerce. There is 
 quite sufficient similarity in several of the cha- 
 racters to make this view antecedently probable, 
 
 1 Runic Monuments, pp. 94, 834. 
 
 2 Essai sur la propagation de V Alphabet Phenicien, vol. I, 
 table v, and p. 112. 
 
 3 Encyclopcedia Britannica, 9th edition, Art. Alphabet. 
 
Historical Proof wanting. 1 7 
 
 but any historical proof would be extremely 
 difficult, if not impossible.' The only definite 
 attempt to give any such 'historical proof is, I 
 believe, that which has been made by Professor 
 Dieterich 1 . The essay of this learned Professor 
 is unfortunately written in a spirit so wholly 
 uncritical, that it is unnecessary to discuss his 
 arguments or even to state them. This much, 
 however, may be said with regard to any such 
 attempt. The runes, in their earliest forms, must 
 be affiliated to the Phoenician alphabet of some 
 definite Time and Place. If, as Mr. Peile sup- 
 poses, the runes were obtained from Phoenician 
 traders, they must have come either from Sidon, 
 Tyre, or Carthage. This must have been either 
 before the destruction of Sidon by the Persians, 
 or of Tyre by Alexander, or of Carthage by the 
 Romans, conditions which limit us to those Phoe- 
 nician alphabets which were prior to the fourth 
 century B.C. It is also plain that the more 
 primitive forms of the Phoenician letters, which 
 are earlier in date than the great extension of 
 
 1 Entrathselung des Odinischen Futhork durch das Semitische 
 Alphabet. Stockholm, 1864. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 The Phoenician Hypothesis. 
 
 the Phoenician commerce, as well as all the later 
 developments of the runes, must be excluded 
 from the comparison. These obvious conditions 
 dispose of almost all the arguments which might 
 be drawn from a superficial comparison of the 
 tables of Phoenician and runic letters which are 
 given by Professor Stephens 1 . Thus we can no 
 longer compare the Semitic letters :£, £ and H 
 with the late runes of similar form and value. 
 
 Moreover, it is contrary to all probability and 
 analogy to suppose that developments of the 
 Semitic letters which took place among the 
 Greeks should have been again precisely and 
 independently repeated in the case of the Gothic 
 runes. It is, for instance, impossible to believe 
 that the remarkable evolution of Aryan vowels 
 out of certain Semitic gutturals and breathings 
 should, by mere chance, have run a parallel 
 course among the civilized Hellenes and th( 
 semi-barbarous Baltic tribes ; or, to take an in- 
 stance or two from among the consonants, it is 
 in the highest degree improbable that botl 
 
 1 Runic Monwments, pp. 95, 116. 
 
Improbability of the Hypothesis. 19 
 
 Greeks and Goths should independently have 
 evolved the forms fc, $, and H out of the 
 Phoenician letters $, W, and ^. 
 
 Several of the runes are, no doubt, capable of 
 explanation from Semitic letters, but even if we 
 allow the utmost latitude of interpretation it will 
 be found that more than half of the twenty-four 
 primitive runes are left unexplained by the 
 Phoenician hypothesis. 
 
 At present, however, this hypothesis hardly 
 calls for serious refutation, for it has never yet 
 been seriously propounded. Till some competent 
 and sober scholar shall succeed in showing how 
 the Gothic Futhorc, rune by rune, might have 
 been evolved out of the Phoenician letters, there 
 is really nothing substantial to be refuted. The 
 mere assertion of a ' possibility,' which is all that 
 has yet been given us by the propounders of 
 the Semitic theory, affords no solid material for 
 argument. 
 
 § 4. The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 A second hypothesis, which derives the runes 
 from the Latin Alphabet, stands upon a different 
 
 c 2 
 
20 The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 footing. It is obviously suggested by the striking 
 resemblance of the runes fc, <, Y , H, I, ft, to the 
 corresponding Eoman letters B, C, F, H, I, R; 
 
 and it is supported, not by the allegation 
 of vague generalities and possibilities, but by 
 definite arguments, brought forward by writers 
 of repute, which can be grappled with and 
 weighed. 
 
 The Latin theory was broached by Dr. Kirch- 
 hoff, five and twenty years ago 1 , and has recently 
 been worked out in considerable detail by Dr. 
 Wimmer 2 , a Danish scholar, whose elaborate 
 arguments have been favourably regarded by 
 MM. Earle, Khys, Vigfusson, and Sweet, and by 
 several German scholars of repute. 
 
 Dr. Wimmer supposes that the Eunes were 
 obtained from the Romans, through the Gauls, 
 in the time of the early empire 3 . In order to 
 account for certain Eunes which plainly cannot 
 be of Latin origin, he assumes that his hypo- 
 
 1 Das Gothische Runenalphabet. Berlin, 1854. 
 
 2 Runeskriftens Oprindelse og Udvikling i Norden. Kopen- 
 tavn, 1874. 
 
 3 Op. cit. p. 1 50. 
 
The Chronological Difficulty. 21 
 
 thetieal Gaulish alphabet contained letters derived 
 from the Massilian Greeks, and others descended 
 from the old North-Etruscan alphabet!, 
 
 The difficulties which beset this theory are 
 of two kinds — general and special. Passing 
 over the wholly unwarranted assumption as to 
 the nature of Dr. Wimmer's imagmary^Gaulish 
 alphabet, the first objection that presents itself 
 is that sufficient time is not obtainable for 
 bringing about the changes which must have 
 taken place in several of the letters. It has 
 been already shown that the Goths possessed a 
 uniform and well-established alphabet in the 
 second century, before they migrated, one body 
 northwards to Scandinavia, another southwards 
 to the Danube. ' Now although ten runes of 
 the Gothic Futhorc closely resemble the ten 
 corresponding Roman letters, yet the other four- 
 teen differ from them very considerably. Barely 
 a century, if so much, is obtainable on Dr. 
 Wimmer's theory for the spread of the runes, 
 through a host of hostile tribes, from the Rhone 
 to the Vistula, and for the extensive changes 
 of form and value which must have taken place 
 
22 The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 in several of the letters if the runes are to be 
 connected with the Latin alphabet. Setting 
 aside for the present certain fatal phonetic diffi- 
 culties, which will hereafter be considered, it 
 is difficult to believe that a century could 
 possibly suffice for Dr. Wimmer's supposed de- 
 velopment of the runes X, , and N out of 
 C ; of M out of E ; or of Y, a runic vowel 
 and guttural, out of Z, a non- Roman sibilant, 
 the existence of which in his Gaulish alphabet 
 Dr. Wimmer fails satisfactorily to explain. 
 
 The geographical difficulty is as great as the 
 chronological. If the runes were obtained from 
 the Romanized Gauls, we ought to find them 
 in the possession of those Teutonic tribes which 
 bordered upon Gaul, or which in some way 
 came into early contact with the Romans ; that 
 is, we should look for them among the tribes 
 of the Rhineland or of the Upper Danube. 
 
 In German lands numerous inscribed stones 
 have been found, dating from the first century 
 downwards, but none of them bear runes ; they 
 are written in unmistakable Roman characters, 
 which exhibit no trace of any tendency towards 
 
The Geographical Difficulty. 23 
 
 the development of the characteristic runic forms. 
 The regions in which runic stones abound are 
 lands which were never part of the Eoman 
 empire, and which are as remote as can be from 
 the Eoman frontier. It is not in the Agri 
 Decumates, or in Vindelicia, or in Rhsetia, that 
 runic stones occur, but in Norway, in Denmark, 
 and more especially in the Swedish provinces 
 of Gothland and Upland. It is the Jutes in 
 Jutland, the Goths in Gothland, and the Mceso- 
 Goths on the Euxine, far remote, all of them, 
 from the frontiers of Gaul, who were acquainted 
 with the runes at a time when they were un- 
 known to the frontier tribes of the Cherusci, 
 the Alemanni, the Istevones, the Chatti, and 
 the Franks. Out of all the two thousand runic 
 stones which have been discovered not one is 
 claimed by Germany or France. The catalogue 
 of the runic treasures of Germany consists of 
 two broaches, a spear -head, and a finger-ring — 
 the possessions, in all probability, of Gothic 
 wanderers or exiles who chanced to die on 
 German soil. 
 
 The preceding geographical evidence may be 
 
24 The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 held to prove that the runes could not have 
 come from the frontiers of Gaul ; while the 
 chronological evidence shews that the Goths 
 must have been acquainted with them long 
 before they had any opportunity of acquiring a 
 knowledge of the Latin alphabet. 
 
 There is another argument of a general nature 
 which is not without its weight. A large number 
 of the most ancient runic inscriptions are written 
 in the early Greek fashion, either in a retrograde 
 direction, from right to left, or boustrophedon. 
 The gradual abandonment of this method of 
 writing can be traced in the runic inscriptions as 
 plainly as in the Greek. Now if the runic writing 
 had been acquired from the Eomans nothing can 
 be more certain than that the earliest runic 
 inscriptions would have been written from left 
 to right according to the Eoman method. It is 
 contrary at the same time to probability and to 
 experience that any nation which had once become 
 acquainted with the more convenient method of 
 writing should have forthwith reverted to the 
 inconvenient archaic system. 
 
 Although the foregoing general considerations 
 
T%e Retrograde Inscriptions. 25 
 
 are probably sufficient by themselves to dispose 
 of Dr. Wimmer's hypothesis, at all events in 
 the form in which he broaches it, yet it may 
 be as well to inquire whether, supposing these 
 preliminary obstacles to be in any way evaded, 
 the Latin alphabet is capable of affording an 
 adequate explanation of the origin of the indi- 
 vidual runes. 
 
 Dr. Kirchhoff's attempt to supply such an 
 explanation must at once be set aside as insuf- 
 ficient. Indeed he does not seem to be aware 
 of the real nature of the problem to be solved. 
 He contents himself with taking fifteen runes 
 from the Scandinavian Futhorc of the tenth 
 century, and comparing twelve of them with 
 the corresponding letters of the Latin alphabet. 
 He ought rather to have taken in hand the 
 Gothic Futhorc of the third century, from 
 which the Scandinavian Futhorc was derived. 
 The real difficulties of the case only arise when 
 we come to deal with the characteristic early 
 runes, such as X, >, X, M, Y, M, £, *, all 
 of which, as will be seen from the table on 
 p. 4, disappeared from the later Scandinavian 
 
26 The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 Futhorc. These early runes Dr. Kirchhoff passes 
 by without a word 1 . 
 
 Dr. Wimmer, however, is fully aware that if 
 the Futhorc is to be derived from the Latin 
 alphabet the difficulty must be faced of ac- 
 counting for the forms of the earlier runes. I 
 will therefore deal with his arguments, rather 
 than with those of Dr. Kirchhoff, and briefly 
 examine the accordance of his methods and re- 
 sults with scientific principles and possibilities. 
 
 In tracing alphabetic developments certain 
 general principles have to be borne in mind. 
 The laws which govern the origin of letters 
 resemble in many respects those which regulate 
 the origin of species and the origin of words. 
 In Paleography, as in Zoology, Botany, or 
 Philology, no arbitrary or violent changes are 
 to be expected. The variations of letters, like 
 the variations of the sounds which they re- 
 present, are slow and gradual, and take place 
 in accordance with phonetic laws, and in obedience 
 to general principles : — the chief of which are 
 
 1 Das Gothisehe Runenalphabet, pp. 4-8. 
 
The Principles of Alphabetic Change. 2j 
 
 (i) The Principle of Least Effort, and (2) The 
 Principle of Sufficient Reason. In the Latin, 
 English, and Greek alphabets these principles 
 are exemplified in the gradual and necessary 
 developments of G out of C, of J out of I, and 
 of n, U, V, Y, W out of O. We here see how 
 on the Principle of Least Effort the old letters 
 were retained, and how additional letters, when 
 required, were gradually developed by means 
 of slight differentiations of form. So again, on 
 the Principle of Sufficient Reason it is manifest 
 that the letter B gradually acquired its lower 
 loop, and the letter R developed its tail, in 
 order to prevent inconvenient confusions with 
 the letter P. 
 
 These fundamental principles of alphabetic 
 change are constantly neglected by Dr. Wimmer. 
 His method assumes that" the inventors of the 
 runes arbitrarily discarded a certain number of 
 the Latin letters, and then without any Sufficient 
 Reason invented other letters to supply the vacant 
 places. If his explanations are correct, several 
 of the runes, instead of having been evolved, 
 like the letters of all other alphabets, by the 
 
28 The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 action of slow and natural processes, must have 
 been invented off hand by some alphabetic law- 
 giver, who had the power to suspend the action 
 of Grimm's Law, and whose arbitrary behests 
 were promptly obeyed over a vast region ex- 
 tending from the Rhone to the Baltic, and from 
 the Baltic to the Danube. 
 
 If we compare the Latin and the Bunic letters, 
 we see that in nine cases there is a sufficiently 
 close correspondence in form and value. We 
 have 
 
 Latin BCFHI'MRST 
 
 Runic MNINHt 
 bcfhimrst 
 
 But there are fifteen runes which cannot so easily 
 be explained. We have 
 
 Latin ADEGLNOPUVX 
 
 Runic frIXIMX r + *KhP-Y t> ^V\ $ 
 
 a d e g I n o p u v x th eo y ng 
 
 "Dr. Wimmer's task is to explain from the Latin 
 Alphabet the origin of these fifteen runes. The 
 explanation which he gives is as follows. 
 
 The Latin A was dropped, without Sufficient 
 
Dr. Wimmers Argument. 29 
 
 Eeason, and the Etruscan A., which had been 
 disused for centuries, took its place. 
 
 The letter D became ^, and acquired the value 
 th. It was then doiibled, and one half of it 
 was turned round, ^••^, in order to obtain the 
 new rune M, with the value of d ; both changes 
 being contrary to phonetic law 1 . 
 
 The letter E was turned upon its face, and 
 for no Sufficient Reason usurped the form of 
 the existing letter M , though there is no trace 
 in any inscription of the hypothetical inter- 
 mediate form rn. 
 
 The letter G, without Sufficient Reason, was 
 disused, and a new sign, X, was arbitrarily 
 invented to supply its place. 
 
 The letter L, for no reason at all, was written 
 upside down, and became t". 
 
 The letter N,for no Sufficient Reason, became +. 
 
 The letter O, for no Sufficient Reason, and 
 contrary to the Principle of Least Effort, took 
 the form fc. 
 
 1 In Gothic th should become d, instead of d becoming ih. 
 In Welsh dd becomes th, but in no known language could 
 th th become d. 
 
3o The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 The letter P changed its form to F*, and its 
 value to v, contrary to the phonetic law that p 
 becomes / A new p was then invented by 
 placing two fc's vis-a-vis, M, and this hypo- 
 thetical rune, of which there is no trace in any 
 inscription, forthwith lost five strokes, and be- 
 came EC. 
 
 The letter V, for no reason at all, was written 
 upside down, and became f). 
 
 The character X having been invented to supply 
 the place of the disused letter G, the Latin letter 
 X consequently became unavailable to express 
 the sound x. Hence the letter Z, which is not 
 a true Latin letter at all, but Etruscan and 
 Greek, was taken over and transformed into Y, 
 with the values x and i, and also, as Dr. Wimmer 
 contends, with the value of r 1 . 
 
 This Greek or Etruscan Z was so familiar to 
 those who constructed the runes out of the Latin 
 letters that it was made the parent, not only of 
 T, but also of the rune \ or s/"*, with the values 
 
 1 Dr. Wimmer assigns the value of r to the two runes f 
 and R, even when they stand side by side in the same in- 
 scription. 
 
Dr. Wimmer's Argument. 31 
 
 i and eo, without Sufficient Reason, and contrary 
 to phonetic law. 
 
 The remaining runes offer a still more crucial 
 test of the adequacy of Dr. Wimmer's theory. 
 Identifying the rune < (F) with the Latin C , he 
 considers that the three runes X, 4> an( l £> 
 which denote respectively g, y, and ng, were 
 formed by three different reduplications of the 
 rune <. How the debilitated sounds g and y 
 could be obtained by the reduplication (i. e. the 
 strengthening) of the hard guttural k he does 
 not explain. But if these runes had been thus 
 constructed we should expect to find transitional 
 forms in the earlier inscriptions. Now the rune 
 X appears, firm and well defined, from the very 
 first, while the earlier forms of H are first N, and 
 then § , which certainly do not look like redupli- 
 cations of <. The ng rune, however, was un- 
 doubtedly formed by reduplication — as we can 
 trace it on the earlier monuments through many 
 successive stages of the process of formation. 
 We find such early forms as ty, O, Y, tj , Z, 
 S, Q, <>, the last of which settled into the final 
 form £ about the sixth century a.d. Dr. Wimmer 
 
32 The Latin Hypothesis. 
 
 is therefore plainly right in considering this as 
 a double rune, derived from <. But it is 
 equally plain that the ng sound must have arisen 
 out of gg and not out of kk. In Greek 77 is 
 equivalent to ng, and Ulphilas, as in the words 
 juggs, young, and huggrjan, to hunger, employs 
 the symbols rr (gg) to express the Teutonic 
 sound ng, either following in this respect the 
 familiar law of the Greek phonesis, or, more 
 probably, retaining the usage which he found 
 in the Gothic Futhorc on which he modelled his 
 Alphabet. Not only must ng come from gg, 
 but by Grimm's Law a Gothic k represents a 
 primitive g. It follows therefore that the ori- 
 ginal value of the symbol < was g and not k, 
 as thus, and thus only, can the origin of both of 
 the two runes < (k), and £ ( n 9)> De explained. 
 Now in the Latin alphabet the power of the 
 third symbol, C, had already been changed from 
 g to c, and hence, independently of all geogra- 
 phical or chronological considerations, it is obvious 
 that no modification of the conditions of the Latin 
 Hypothesis is capable of accounting for the origin 
 of the runes. 
 
Difficulties of the Latin Hypothesis. 33 
 
 In the way of the Latin theory stand a whole 
 host of insuperable difficulties — chronological, geo- 
 graphical, phonological, and morphological. Not 
 only does it fail to account for the origin of 
 fourteen out of the twenty-four primitive runes, 
 but it leaves entirely unexplained the order 
 which they occupy in the Futhorc. Why, it 
 may be asked, should the Futhorc begin with f 
 and end with 0, instead of beginning with a and 
 ending with x or z ? 
 
 Dr. Wimmer's argument appears to me to be 
 so destitute of any solid foundation that I should 
 not have deemed it needful to examine it in 
 such detail if it had not obtained the approval 
 of so many scholars of high repute. 
 
 § 5. The Greek Hypothesis. 
 
 From one passage only, in any ancient writer, 
 do we obtain information as to the nature of 
 the runes. Tacitus had heard a report of the 
 existence, somewhere far away in the regions of 
 the North 1 , of certain inscriptions which were 
 
 1 Tacitus, {rermania, § 3. The vague references to the 
 frontiers of Germany and Rhsetia, and to the place called 
 
 D 
 
34 The Greek Hypothesis. 
 
 written in Greek characters : monumenta et 
 tumulos quosdam, Grsecis literis inscriptos. The 
 report seemed to him so strange that he declines 
 either to vouch for its truth or to attempt an 
 explanation; but he gives, for what it might he 
 worth, the current conjecture. Some persons, he 
 says, have supposed that Ulysses in his wander- 
 ings must have visited the northern coasts of 
 Germany, and left behind him these inscriptions : 
 quae neque confirmare argumentis, neque refellere 
 in animo est : ex ingenio suo quisque demat vel 
 addat fidem. 
 
 Modern writers have scouted the account of 
 Tacitus as an 'absurd story;' a more sagacious 
 criticism may perhaps discover in it a hint which 
 may supply the true explanation of the runic 
 mystery. 
 
 Asciburgiuni, where Tacitus localizes these inscriptions, may 
 perhaps be reconciled by the supposition that the Asciburgium 
 of Tacitus is really the 'Ao-Kifiovpyiov opos of Ptolemy, which 
 is undoubtedly the Eiesengebirge on the frontier of Silesia. 
 Tacitus may have transferred his Asciburgium to the lower 
 Rhine in order to harmonize with the current Odyssean 
 legend the reports which he had heard as to the Ascibergian 
 inscriptions. 
 
The Evidence of Tacitus. 35 
 
 It is manifest that if the Phcenician and Latin 
 solutions have both to be rejected, one other 
 possibility alone remains — the runes must have 
 been derived from the Greek letters, since the 
 Greeks were the only other people in possession 
 of an alphabet who could have anywise come 
 into contact, commercial or colonial, with any of 
 the Teutonic tribes at a period as early as the 
 circumstances of the case require. If the Greek 
 alphabet will not afford a solution of the pro- 
 blem, it must, apparently, be given up as finally 
 insoluble. 
 
 It is at once obvious that the chief difficulties 
 which stand in the way of a solution from the 
 Latin Alphabet do not apply equally to the Greek. 
 
 If the runes were acquired by the Eastern 
 Teutons from the Greek colonies on the Euxine 
 the chronological difficulty disappears, as we 
 should obtain several centuries for the needful 
 developments. The geographical difficulty also 
 assumes a less formidable shape, as in this case 
 the South-Western Teutons would be the last, 
 instead of the first, to acquire a knowledge of 
 the runes. Nor does any difficulty arise from 
 
 D 2 
 
36 The Greek Hypothesis. 
 
 the retrograde or boustrophedon direction of the 
 primitive runic writing, as the early Greek in- 
 scriptions are written in the same manner. It 
 has just been shown that Dr. Wimmer's theory- 
 breaks down conspicuously in the attempt to 
 account for the origin of the runes DC, Y, X, 
 £, <. We may therefore take these five runes, 
 which have never yet been satisfactorily ex- 
 plained, as affording a sort of preliminary test 
 of the adequacy of the Greek hypothesis. By 
 Grimm's Law a Greek answers to a Gothic d. 
 Hence S or M, which are the old runes for d, 
 may be identified with I or ®, the ancient 
 forms of 6. Grimm's Law also gives a Gothic g 
 as the equivalent of a Greek %• Hence X, the 
 rune for g, is, as it ought to be, simply the 
 Greek %• But in the early Greek alphabet we 
 find Y as well as X as the symbol for ch. As 
 one of these equivalent signs, X, acquired in 
 Italy the value of x, so the other, Y, might 
 have acquired the value of w in Seandinavia. In 
 the next place, by Grimm's Law, a Greek y 
 answers to a Gothic h. Hence from the Greek 
 F or f we obtain in Scandinavia, as in Italv 
 
A preliminary Test. 3 7 
 
 the symbol < for c (k). Also since gg expresses 
 the sound of ng in Greek and in Ulphilas, the 
 double rune <^ or £ for ng is at once explained. 
 It will be noticed that all these correspondencies, 
 instead of contravening phonetic laws, are in 
 entire harmony with them, while the distinctive 
 peculiarities of the runic system, which are in- 
 explicable on the Latin hypothesis, receive a 
 simple and natural explanation from the Greek 
 alphabet. 
 
 The foregoing arguments, which can be stated 
 in a single paragraph, seem sufficient to justify 
 a more detailed investigation of a theory which, 
 though it seems to be the obvious solution of 
 the problem, and accords with the only state- 
 ment of any ancient author on the subject, has 
 not hitherto, so far as I am aware, undergone 
 the test of a serious examination. 
 
 § 6. The Chronological Conditions. 
 
 But before thus examining the Futhorc to see 
 if by legitimate processes it can be derived, rune 
 by rune, from the Greek alphabet, it is needful 
 
38 The Chronological Conditions. 
 
 to state, as briefly as may be, the geographical 
 and chronological conditions of the problem, and 
 to determine the forms which were assumed by 
 the Greek letters at the time and at the place 
 at which it would seem that the origin of the 
 runes may most probably be sought. 
 
 First, as to the chronological possibilities. 
 
 We have already seen that there is reason to 
 believe that the runes must have originated at 
 a considerable period before the year 20a A. D. 
 Now the amount of phonetic change which 
 separates the Greek letters from the earliest 
 runes occupied in the case of Keltic speech about 
 eight centuries 1 . It seems then to be not un- 
 reasonable to postulate a somewhat similar period 
 for the development of corresponding changes in 
 the Gothic and Scandinavian languages. A some- 
 what more definite date is given by the signifi- 
 cant peculiarity in the direction of the earliest 
 runic writing, a circumstance which points to 
 the conclusion that the runes must have been 
 obtained from the Greeks at the very time when 
 
 1 Rhys, Lectures on Welsh Philology, p. 45. 
 
The Boustrophedon Test. 39 
 
 the Greek writing was in its transition state, 
 and was passing from the retrograde direction 
 in which it was received from the Phoenicians, 
 through the intermediate boustrophedon stage, 
 into the ultimate direction from left to right. 
 This consideration would indicate the sixth cen- 
 tury B.C. as an approximate date for the origin 
 of the runes. 
 
 The palseographical tests agree in pointing to 
 the same date. 
 
 The Greek alphabet from which the runes 
 were derived must have been distinguished, as 
 will be seen hereafter, by the following fourteen 
 characteristics : — 
 
 1-3. The introduction of the new letters X, Y, 
 and A. 
 
 4. The use of H to denote both the vowel 
 and the aspirate. 
 
 5-9. The use of R instead of P ; of M instead 
 of l w ; of ® instead of 0; of > instead of A; 
 and of A and < instead of I" '. 
 
 10-12. The use of h in place of the earlier 
 U or the later A ; of $ instead of the earlier 
 
40 The Chronological Conditions. 
 
 M or the later Z ; and of H instead of the 
 earlier B or the later K 
 
 13, 14. The retention of the gutturals <p 
 and Y. 
 
 These fourteen runic tests are also the charac- 
 teristic marks of the alphabet of Ionia and 
 the Isles at the end of the sixth century B.C. 
 
 To obtain a superior limit of time we have 
 
 the following dates : — 
 
 Before the 
 Introduction of X 40th Olympiad. 
 
 Introduction of H 60th „ 
 
 Introduction of Y . . • . . 47th „ 
 
 Use of B as a vowel . . . 40th „ 
 
 Change of B to H .... 45th „ 
 
 Introduction of the tailed R . 55th „ 
 
 Change of \t to f* 40th „ 
 
 Change of V to M . . . . 55th 
 
 Change of M to J .... 40th „ 
 
 Hence it appears that the specially runic forms 
 of the Greek alphabet were acquired between the 
 40th and 60th Olympiads. 
 
The Palcsographical Tests. 
 
 4i 
 
 For the inferior limit of time we have — 
 
 
 After the 
 
 Disuse of tailed R . . 
 
 . 84th Olympiad. 
 
 Disuse of H for aspirate 
 
 ■ 85th 
 
 Change of ® to . . 
 
 . 80th 
 
 Change of b to A . . 
 
 . • 75th 
 
 Change of $ to 5 . . 
 
 • 75th 
 
 Change of ^ to A . . 
 
 . 80th 
 
 Final disuse of <p and Y 
 
 • 75th „ 
 
 These approximate dates show that several 
 characteristic runic forms disappeared between 
 the 75th and 85th Olympiads. 
 
 It appears therefore that the Ionian and Island 
 alphabet exhibits a remarkable approximation to 
 runic forms between the 60th and the 75th 
 Olympiads, that is, between the years 540 and 
 480 B.C. This date for the origin of the runes, 
 which has been arrived at solely on palaeo- 
 graphical grounds, is curiously confirmed by his- 
 torical considerations. 
 
 In the sixth century B.C. the shores of Thrace 
 and of the Black Sea were thickly studded with 
 colonies from the Isles and the Ionian cities. 
 
42 The Chronological Conditions. 
 
 Just at the close of this century the rapid pro- 
 gress of the Persian arms must have effectually 
 isolated all these northern colonies from their 
 parent states, and thus have stereotyped for a 
 considerable period the alphabet which they pos- 
 sessed. The Persian expedition to the Danube, 
 the conquest of Thrace, the capture of Miletus, 
 Teos, Lesbos, Samos, Naxos, Thasos, Chios, Lemnos, 
 Tenedos, and Chalcis, are events which took place 
 between the years 510 and 490. Thus in the 
 year 500 B.C., at the very time when the runic 
 characteristics of the Ionian and Island alphabet 
 had attained their maximum development, the 
 Ionian and Island colonies on the Euxine were 
 temporarily, and in some cases permanently, cut 
 off from intercourse with the parent cities. Such 
 an isolation of colonial dependencies tends to 
 perpetuate in them archaic peculiarities. The 
 case of the Saxon colonists in Transylvania, of 
 the French habitans in Canada, or of the Dutch 
 boers at the Cape, are sufficient to shew that 
 isolated colonists are likely to conserve for cen- 
 turies the fashions of speech, dress, and writing 
 which were prevalent in the parent countries 
 
Isolation of the Thracian Colonies. 43 
 
 at the time when the severance took place. In 
 default of any direct evidence it may therefore 
 be regarded as probable that those special runic 
 characteristics of the Greek alphabet, which in 
 Greece itself were but transient, lasting little 
 more than half a century, might in the Euxine 
 colonies have been preserved for a much longer 
 period, very possibly for a century or two after 
 the Persian invasion. 
 
 § 7. The Geographical Conditions. 
 
 We now come to deal with the geographical 
 possibilities of the problem. We have to inquire 
 whether any Teutonic people could have had 
 such intercourse with any of the Greek colonies 
 in the sixth or following centuries as to enable 
 them to acquire a knowledge of what we may 
 call the runic type of the Greek alphabet. 
 
 Now the Greek colonies on the shores of Thrace 
 and of the Euxine were derived almost exclusively 
 from Ionia and the Isles, where the runic pecu- 
 liarities of the Greek alphabet are chiefly found. 
 Samothrace was colonized from Samos, Chalcidice 
 from Chalcis, Thasos from Paros, while Miletus 
 
44 The Geographical Conditions. 
 
 had numerous colonies on the Hellespont, in 
 Thrace, in the Crimea, and at the mouths of the 
 Don, the Dniester, and the Dnieper. 
 
 If the Thracian Getse were of Gothic race the 
 problem receives an immediate solution. The 
 Getse are found not only south of the Balkans 
 in the valley of the Maritza, but they were spread 
 over the Wallachian and Bessarabian plains from 
 the Danube to the Dnieper. If the Getes 
 were Goths we should thus have Goths and 
 Greeks dwelling in absolute contact. Procopius 
 and Jornandes, Jerome and Spartian, agree in 
 identifying Getes and Goths. The identification 
 is supported by the high authority of W. Grimm, 
 whose argument, drawn from the Teutonic cha- 
 racter of the Dacian plant-names in Dioscorides, 
 has recently been re-stated with great ability 
 by Mr. Douse. Canon Bawlinson goes so far as 
 to affirm that "the identity of the Getae with 
 the Goths of later times is more than a plausible 
 conjecture. It may be regarded as historically 
 certain 1 ." But, weighty as are the opinions of 
 
 1 Eawlinson's Herodotus, vol. iii. pp. 69, 180. 
 
Getes and Goths. 45 
 
 these authorities, it must be admitted that the 
 ethnic affinities of the Getse are still so far mat- 
 ter of controversy as to be unfitted for the basis 
 of an historical induction. The ethnology of 
 the Gothini, who are placed by Tacitus in the 
 extreme south-west of Germany, is still more 
 uncertain. 
 
 But to the north-west of the Greek colonies 
 of the Euxine, and within reach of the Greek 
 traders, an universal consensus of ancient and 
 modern writers places a people who were in- 
 dubitably of Gothic race. Pytheas of Marseilles, 
 a contemporary of Alexander, tells us that the 
 amber country was in the territory of the Goths 
 (Guttones) who lived on the Bantomannian 1 Bay, 
 which must be identified either with the Frische. 
 Haff or the Gulf of Dantzig. Our next authority 
 is Tacitus, whose information, not being derived 
 like that of Pytheas from Baltic mariners, would 
 
 1 I take this to be the probable reading of the well-known 
 passage in Pliny. The Low-German word bant, a 'district,' 
 appears in Bra-bant, and other names. Thus the name of the 
 Banto-manni would not be a true ethnic term, but a misappre- 
 hension of Phoenician navigators, and would mean simply the 
 ' people of the district,' the ' country-folk.' 
 
46 The Geographical Conditions. 
 
 apply to the south-western rather than to the 
 northern frontier of the Goths. Tacitus places 
 the Goths (Gothones) nearly in the same region, 
 but somewhat farther to the south, east of the 
 Lygii, who inhabited Silesia and the western part 
 of modern Poland. The testimony of Ptolemy 
 (about 150 a.d.) is in harmony with the state- 
 ments both of Pytheas and of Tacitus. He puts 
 the Goths (TvOovei) east of the Vistula, and the 
 Todrai (Jutes'?) in the 'island of Scandia,' which 
 we may identify with the Swedish province of 
 Gothland \ 
 
 It would seem therefore that the northward 
 migration across the Baltic of a portion of the 
 Goths' must have taken place at some consider- 
 able period before the time of Ptolemy. But 
 there is ample ground for believing that the 
 residue of the Gothic nation which remained to 
 the south of the Baltic was very numerous. To 
 say nothing of the vast hosts which followed the 
 standards of Athanaric, Alaric, and Theodoric, 
 we are told that the Gothic army which defeated 
 
 1 See Zeuss, Die Deutschen, pp. 134, 51 1-5 13. 
 
Extent of the Gothic Realm, 47 
 
 the Emperor Decius in the year 250 numbered 
 70,000 warriors, while the host which nineteen 
 years later was routed by Claudius amounted 
 to no less than 320,000. However much the 
 numbers may have been exaggerated, it is ob- 
 vious that these great armies constituted only the 
 vanguard of the Gothic array which kept rolling 
 on from the North upon the South, till at last 
 it spent its force in founding powerful Gothic 
 kingdoms in G-aul, Italy, and Spain. It seems 
 therefore to be a very moderate computation if 
 we reckon the population of the original Gothic 
 realm to the east of the Vistula at a million of 
 souls. At the present time the population which 
 this region is able to support is very sparse. 
 In the governments of Minsk and Volhynia the 
 present density is about forty to the square mile. 
 But the Goths, when they occupied this district, 
 were a thinly scattered pastoral people, and we 
 are probably under the mark if we suppose the 
 present agricultural population to be at least 
 four times as dense. To support a million of 
 Goths in their original seats with a density of 
 ten to the square mile, a territory of 100,000 
 
48 The Geographical Conditions. 
 
 square miles would be required. It follows that 
 the Gothic realm must have stretched southwards 
 for some 400 or 500 miles from the Baltic coast. 
 This inference, which agrees with the testimony 
 of Pytheas, Tacitus, and Ptolemy, is supported 
 by the recent discovery in Volhyma of a spear- 
 head bearing an inscription written in Gothic 
 runes of the early type. This spear-head was 
 found near the town of Kovel, which stands on 
 the Pripet, an affluent of the Dnieper, and is 
 distant about 300 miles from the Baltic coast, 
 and about 400 miles from the Black Sea. 
 
 Here then, on the upper waters of the Dnieper, 
 in the Eussian governments of Grodno, Minsk, 
 and Volhyma, we may place the southern limit 
 of the Gothic tribes before they commenced their 
 great historical migration down the valley of the 
 Dnieper to the Euxine and the Danube. 
 
 But a nation which held possession of the 
 amber coast of the Baltic, and also extended so 
 far southward as to occupy the upper basin of 
 the Dnieper, would almost necessarily be in com- 
 mercial intercourse with the enterprising Greek 
 traders who had the command of the commerce 
 
The Dnieper. 49 
 
 of this great river. From the earliest times the 
 trade route between the Baltic and the Euxine 
 was by the waterway of the Dnieper, which rises 
 within 200 miles of the Baltic coast. It was 
 by this route, the Austrvegr or Eastway, that 
 the Varangian vikings from Swedish Gothland 
 descended from the North and swarmed along 
 the coasts of the Black Sea, and even laid siege 
 to Constantinople. The Dnieper (Borysthenes) 
 was known to the Greeks as early as the 
 seventh century B.C., and the valuable trade of 
 this great natural highway was in the possession 
 of the Greek colonies which were established 
 near its southern outlet. The importance of the 
 Greek commerce of the Dnieper is evident from 
 the statement of Herodotus, who had himself 
 visited Olbia, the flourishing Greek colony esta- 
 blished at its mouth. Herodotus speaks of the 
 Borysthenes as being, next after the Nile, the 
 greatest and most valuable river of the earth. 
 He adds that it was known as far as the dis- 
 trict of Gerrhos, forty days' journey from the 
 sea. Now the distance in a straight line between 
 the Black Sea and the Baltic is not more than 
 
 E 
 
50 The Geographical Conditions. 
 
 700 miles, and the northern half of this space 
 lay, as we have seen, within the limits of the 
 Gothic realm, the southern frontier of which 
 would not be more than 400 miles from Olbia, 
 or about the distance of Olbia from Byzantium. 
 Now since the Greek merchants from Olbia 
 ascended the river for a distance of forty days' 
 journey, and if we reckon a day's journey at 
 fifteen miles, and make sufficient allowance for 
 the windings of the stream, this will bring 
 Gerrhos into close proximity with the southern 
 border of the Gothic occupancy, if not actually 
 within it 1 . It may therefore be assumed that 
 in the sixth and following centuries there was 
 sufficient opportunity for the Goths on the 
 Pripet to acquire a knowledge of the Greek 
 alphabet from the Greek merchants who traded 
 on the Dnieper for the amber, and other pro- 
 ducts of the Gothic realm. 
 
 1 The name Gerrhos may be the Gothic gards, which in 
 Ulphilas denotes a ' district,' as in midjun-gards, the world. 
 In Norse the word denoted a stockaded trading-post. Kiev 
 was called by the Northmen Kcenu-garthr (Ship-ton). If Kiev 
 is the Gerrhos of Herodotus, then the river Pripet, on which 
 Zeuss places the Goths, would be the 'river of Gerrhos.' 
 
Thracian Coins. 51 
 
 § 8. The Thracian Alphabet. 
 
 The next step in our investigation is to 
 ascertain the characteristics of the alphabet which 
 was used by these Greek traders. The direct 
 evidence as to the Olbian and Thracian alphabet 
 is very meagre. The Greek inscription from the 
 Nogai steppe is only a fragment, and the great 
 Olbian inscription 1 is useless for our purpose, as 
 it belongs to a very much later period. We 
 have to rely mainly on the evidence of a few 
 Thracian coins, notably a large gold coin of Geta, 
 King of the Edoni, now in the British Museum, 
 which is believed 2 to belong to the sixth century 
 B.c, and several coins of the Orreskioi of about 
 the same date. But there is no lack of inscrip- 
 tions of the required date belonging to the cities 
 and islands from which the Thracian and Euxine 
 alphabet must have been derived. We have 
 much early pottery from Thasos 3 , together with 
 
 1 BSckh, No. 2058. 
 
 2 This coin was found in the bed of the Euphrates, and may- 
 have been brought from Thrace by a Persian soldier of Darius. 
 
 s Dumont, Inscriptions Ceramiques de Grece. Paris, 1872. 
 
 E 2 
 
The Titration Alphabet. 
 
 the celebrated inscription from Sigeum, several 
 from Miletus, the mother city of Olbia, and many 
 more 1 from Paros, Siphnos, Naxos, Melos, Samos, 
 and Chalcis, all of them belonging to the end 
 of the sixth century B.C. The evidence of the 
 Thracian coins goes to show that the Thracian 
 alphabet was identical with the alphabet of the 
 mother cities of the Thracian colonies, which is 
 usually designated as the second alphabet of 
 Ionia and the Isles 2 . 
 
 The following table has been carefully com- 
 piled from the original sources, to show the 
 three successive types of the Greek alphabet. 
 The first column contains the earliest Greek 
 alphabet, usually called the Cadmean Alphabet, 
 which is obtained mainly from the Inscriptions 
 of Thera and Abousimbul. The second column, 
 which for convenience may be designated the 
 
 1 See ^Kirchhoff, Studien zur Geschichte des Griechischen 
 alphabets, passim. 
 
 a This alphabet was probably introduced into Thrace by 
 means of the Parian colony of Thasos, the Chalcidian colony 
 of Chalcidice, and the Samian colony of Samothrace. See 
 Kirchhoff, op. cit., and Lenormant, art. Alfihabet in Daremberg's 
 Dictionnaire, p. 202. 
 
The Three Greek Alphabets. 53 
 
 Thbacian Alphabet, has been compiled from 
 the legends on Thracian coins, on the pottery 
 of Thasos, and from inscriptions of the mother 
 cities of the Thracian colonies. It shows the 
 forms which were in use during the half century 
 which preceded the Persian invasion. The third 
 column contains the later or Standard Greek 
 Alphabet of the fifth and following centuries, 
 which may be called the Attic Alphabet. 
 
 It will be noticed that those special letter- 
 forms which have already afforded us a chrono- 
 logical test (see p. 39) fulfil also the geographical 
 conditions. The characteristic runic forms of 
 the Greek letters which point to the end of the 
 sixth century as the period of the origination of 
 the runes, are also characteristic of the local 
 Thracian alphabet. The most important of these 
 test forms are — 
 
 On the page opposite to the Table of Greek 
 Alphabets the Table of Runes, which has already 
 been given on page 4, has been reproduced, for 
 the purpose of facilitating convenient reference. 
 
54 
 
 The Thracian Alphabet. 
 
 Table of Gkeek Alphabets. 
 
 
 Cadmean. 
 7th century b. c. 
 
 Thracian. 
 
 6th century B.C. 
 
 Attic. 
 5th century b. c. 
 
 a 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 a 
 
 P 
 
 B 
 
 * 
 
 B 
 
 Y 
 
 < A 
 
 < a r 
 
 r 
 
 S 
 
 A 
 
 > A 
 
 A 
 
 e 
 
 /> 
 
 £ F 
 
 E 
 
 F 
 
 X 
 
 F 
 
 Caret. 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
 X 
 
 z 
 
 V 
 
 Caret. 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 h 
 
 B 
 
 H 
 
 r- r 
 
 8 
 
 © ® 
 
 ® 
 
 O 
 
 i 
 
 $ 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 K 
 
 k 
 
 k x 
 
 K 
 
 X 
 
 V 
 
 A 
 
 A A 
 
 C 
 
 r 
 
 M 
 
 M 
 
 V 
 
 N 
 
 A- H N 
 
 N 
 
 £ 
 
 z 
 
 5 
 
 3E H 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 o n 
 
 O 
 
 77 
 
 r 
 
 p 
 
 n 
 
 q 
 
 * ^ 
 
 9 y 
 
 Caret. 
 
 p 
 
 i> 
 
 P> R R 
 
 P 
 
 <r 
 
 M ? 
 
 ? j 
 
 £ c 
 
 T 
 
 X * 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 V 
 
 Caret. 
 
 v y y 
 
 V Y 
 
 <p 
 
 Caret. 
 
 © 
 
 * 
 
 X 
 
 Caret. 
 
 * X 
 Caret. 
 
 X 
 
 CO 
 
 Caret. 
 
 Q O 
 
 A 
 
The Fulhorcs. 
 
 55 
 
 Table of Eunes. 
 
 Names. 
 
 Values. 
 
 RUNES. 
 
 IV 
 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 
 
 Gothic. 
 
 Anglian. 
 
 Scandi- 
 navian. 
 
 Alphabet of 
 Ulphilas. 
 
 fech, feh, fe 
 
 / 
 
 % * 
 
 B V 
 
 r 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 ur, hur 
 
 u 
 
 A n 
 
 n n 
 
 n 
 
 n 
 
 ov 
 
 thorn 
 
 ih 
 
 D > ► 
 
 > 
 
 i> 
 
 A 
 
 s 
 
 asc, sesc, os 
 
 a, se, o 
 
 & * 
 
 F> P 
 
 * 
 
 A 
 
 a 
 
 rad, rat 
 
 r 
 
 R R 
 
 1* 
 
 R As. 
 
 K 
 
 p 
 
 cen, kaun 
 
 c, k 
 
 < A 
 
 k 
 
 K 
 
 K 
 
 K 
 
 gebo, gifu 
 
 g 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 
 r 
 
 y 
 
 wen 
 
 V, IV 
 
 P 
 
 P 
 
 
 VP© 
 
 v,hv 
 
 hegl, hagal 
 
 h 
 
 NMHH 
 
 N 
 
 * 
 
 h 
 
 h 
 
 nyd, nod 
 
 n 
 
 + -r 
 
 + 
 
 + I 
 
 N 
 
 V 
 
 is 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 ger, yr, ar 
 
 y,ge,j,a 
 
 NhO 
 
 4> 
 
 AA 
 
 g 
 
 J 
 
 hie, ih, eoh 
 
 ih, i, eo 
 
 \^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 z 
 
 ; 
 
 peorth, perc 
 
 P 
 
 * 
 
 K C 
 
 K 
 
 n 
 
 7T 
 
 ilix, calc 
 
 a, i, k, x 
 
 r 
 
 Y 
 
 
 qo 
 
 q 
 
 sigil 
 
 s 
 
 s 
 
 h 
 
 H 
 
 s 
 
 <r 
 
 tir 
 
 t 
 
 t 
 
 t 
 
 t 1 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 berc, berith 
 
 I 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 B 
 
 K 
 
 /3 
 
 haec, ech, eh 
 
 e 
 
 n m 
 
 M 
 
 
 e 
 
 *? 
 
 man 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
 M 
 
 ? y 
 
 M 
 
 ^ 
 
 lagu 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
 h 
 
 r 
 
 A 
 
 X 
 
 ing 
 
 ng 
 
 o <> 
 
 * 
 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 dag, daeg 
 
 d 
 
 H M 
 
 M 
 
 
 <I> 
 
 6 
 
 othil 
 
 o, oe 
 
 * R 
 
 ft 
 
 
 £ 
 
 CO 
 
56 The Futhorc and the Alphabet. 
 
 § 9. The Futhorc and the Alphabet. 
 
 To close the remaining links in the chain of 
 the argument is now a comparatively easy task. 
 We have only to examine how the runes of the 
 earliest Gothic Futhorc, as given in the first 
 column of the Table of the Kunes, can be 
 connected, one by one, with the letters of the 
 Thracian Alphabet which are tabulated on 
 page 54. 
 
 The six centuries which separate the Thracian 
 Alphabet from the earliest extant runic inscrip- 
 tions must necessarily have produced considerable 
 variations in the forms and powers of the indi- 
 vidual runes. These developments will however 
 be in accordance with those general Principles 
 of Alphabetic change which have been at work 
 in the formation of all other alphabets, and which 
 have already been formulated. We must expect 
 to find the special phonetic developments of the 
 Gothic and Scandinavian languages accompanied 
 and connoted by corresponding changes in the 
 powers and forms of the runes. The develop- 
 ment of new runic forms would also occasionally 
 
The Laws of Alphabetic Development. 5 7 
 
 necessitate correlative changes in other runes, in 
 order to obtain clearer distinction between forms 
 which were approaching an inconveniently close 
 resemblance. 
 
 It may be laid down as a general rule that 
 letters which represent the most stable sounds 
 are the least subject to variation. The letter M, 
 for instance, which represents one of the most 
 constant of all sounds, may be traced with great 
 ease through all the alphabets of the world. 
 Hence, in those cases in which the Low-German 
 languages have retained unchanged the primitive 
 Indo-European sounds, one of the most efficient 
 causes of alphabetic variation can not operate, 
 and the correspondence between the runes and 
 the Greek letters will be the most close. It 
 follows that the affiliation of the runic liquids 
 and sibilants ought to be easy to trace. It will 
 therefore be convenient to begin with these 
 letters. 
 
 \ 10. Liquids axd Sibilants. 
 
 L. The lambda of the Thracian alphabet has 
 the characteristic form I", which is clearlv dis- 
 
58 Liquids and Sibilants. 
 
 tinguished on the 6ne hand from the form. U 
 which grew up on Italian soil 1 and is the 
 source of our own L, and on the other hand 
 from the forms A and A which characterise the 
 standard alphabet of Hellas. The I rune is most 
 constant and uniform in its form, both in the 
 inscriptions and in the Futhorcs, retaining un- 
 changed from first to last the precise shape of 
 the Thracian h. 
 
 R. The strongest argument in favour of a 
 Latin origin for the runes, and a chief reason, 
 probably, why the Greek hypothesis has not 
 hitherto found an advocate, is the western or 
 tailed form of the r rune, which is either ft 
 or R. But in the Thracian alphabet, during the 
 half century before the Persian invasion, the 
 tailed r appears precisely in the two forms, 
 closed and open, which we find in the runic 
 inscriptions. The tailed r is found on the coins 
 of the Thracian Orreskioi, and also in the parent 
 alphabets of Paros, Thasos, Melos, and Chalcis. 
 In this, as in some other cases, the delusive 
 
 1 See Kirchhoff, Gr. Alph. p. 140. 
 
The Liquids. 59 
 
 resemblance between the runes and the Latin 
 letters must be attributed to the fact that both 
 the Italian and Thracian alphabets descended 
 from the Alphabet of the Isles, while the 
 standard Greek alphabet represents the Eolo- 
 Dorian alphabet of the mainland of Hellas. 
 
 M. It was only when the Cadmean symbol M 
 had ceased to be employed to denote s that P~ , 
 the early form of mu, could develope into M, 
 which is the character used for m in the Thra- 
 cian alphabet. The m rune is M. The change 
 of form can be easily explained. The e rune, as 
 will presently be shown, gradually changed its 
 form from H to M. This change necessitated, 
 to avoid confusion, a correlated differentiation in 
 the form of the m, which was effected, on the 
 Principle of Least Effort, by a slight downward 
 prolongation of the two cross strokes, M be- 
 coming M. 
 
 N. The Thracian nu appears in the forms 
 f/, N, and N. The derived rune was +, with 
 the variants + and h Here, as in the case of 
 the m rune, we have an instance of correlated 
 change. The third stroke of the Thracian letter 
 
6o The Liquids. 
 
 must have been discarded in order to distinguish, 
 the n from the h, which had assumed the forms 
 H and N. But the former existence of the third 
 stroke in the primitive rune is curiously attested 
 by the juxtaposition of the h and n runes in the 
 Futhorc. This singular change in the primitive 
 order of the letters seems to have been effected, 
 as in some other similar cases, for the sake of 
 easy comparison of two runes which must at one 
 time have been nearly identical in form. When 
 at last this inconvenient resemblance had caused 
 the differentiation of the n rune into "f , and of 
 the h rune into N, the reason for the juxta- 
 position of the two runes was removed, but 
 the result remained to attest, as it were, the 
 similarity of the primitive forms. 
 
 S. In the Teutonic languages the sibilant, 
 like the liquids, retained the power which it 
 possessed in the holethnic speech, and we con- 
 sequently find that the forms of this letter are 
 identical in the Thracian and Runic alphabets. 
 In both of them the normal shape is $ , with $ 
 as a variant. 
 
 Thus it appears that in the case of five 
 
The Vowels. 61 
 
 letters, where no changes arising from phonetic 
 causes were to be expected, no such changes have 
 taken place. The runes I*, I*, S, are absolutely- 
 unchanged, while the variations in M and + can 
 be accounted for as cases of change due to 
 correlation. 
 
 $11. The Vowels. 
 
 We now come to the vowels. In the later 
 Futhorcs we find that a most elaborate and 
 complicated vowel system has been developed, 
 but in the earlier inscriptions the vowels are 
 tolerably simple and constant. 
 
 The vowel runes of the Gothic Futhorc are 
 eight, P, I, *, 1, M, X, Y, A. Of these the 
 last two were developed out of the Greek gut- 
 turals Y, ch, and A, g, and will be treated of 
 when we come to consider the gutturals. The 
 other six may be regarded as descendants of the 
 Greek vowels fc, I, ft, Y, H. 
 
 The Greek alpha disappeared from the Futhorc 
 at a very early period, being superseded first by 
 fc, a development of epsilon, which by normal 
 debilitation acquired the successive values a, ce, 
 
62 The Vowels. 
 
 and o, and afterwards by A, a development of 
 gamma. The descent of the rune fc from the 
 Thracian £ is conclusively established by the 
 three inscriptions on the Nordenhoff broach (p. 9). 
 In two of these inscriptions, which are probably 
 the earliest in date, we have £, with the third 
 bar retained, as in the Thracian alphabet. In 
 the third inscription we find £, which is the 
 normal runic form. 
 
 The disuse of the third bar affords a curious 
 argument in favour of the opinion that the f 
 rune f was not, like the Latin F, a descendant 
 of the digamma, F. In that case the third bar 
 of the E would, as in Latin, have been retained 
 in order to distinguish the two letters. But 
 when, at a later period, the new f rune was 
 developed, a distinction was needed, and the E 
 being unable to regain its third bar, which had 
 been lost and forgotten, a simple differentiation 
 was obtained by varying the inclination of the 
 bars, the two runes £ and P" being as easy to 
 distinguish as the Latin letters E and F- 
 
 The rune I retains the form and value of the 
 Thracian iota. The Greeks having reduced this 
 
The Twelfth Rune. 63 
 
 letter to the last stage of simplicity, there was 
 no room for modification. 
 
 A very obvious identification is that of the 
 rune £ with the Greek ft, which in Thrace 
 usually denoted not the long 0, but a shorter 
 and more open sound. In the early inscriptions 
 the rune & has the power of 0, and afterwards 
 that of os. Ultimately this rune fell entirely 
 into disuse, being replaced by a development of 
 epsilon. 
 
 The twelfth rune in the Futhorc occurs so 
 seldom in the early inscriptions, and varies so 
 greatly that it is by no means easy to discover 
 its parentage. The chief forms in the Gothic 
 Futhorc are N, V\, N, ■*!, <5, with the value of y; 
 in the Anglian Futhorc we have +, ^, <{>, cj>, 
 with the values g, gg, gee, and y; in the Scandi- 
 navian Futhorc the runes are /K , y, and A, a ; 
 while in the Mceso- Gothic alphabet we have 
 y, j, or y. The two Scandinavian runes seem 
 to be descendants of the Greek gamma, as will 
 hereafter be explained, but it does not seem to 
 be so easy to refer the Gothic forms to the same 
 parentage. The most primitive of all the forms 
 
64 The Vowels. 
 
 of this rune is N, which is found on the Berga 
 stone, and also on a very early golden bracteate, 
 in both cases with the power of y 1 . These two 
 inscriptions are written from right to left, which 
 is a sign of great antiquity. On the Istaby 
 stone 2 , which is probably later by a century or 
 two, we find the derived form H, also with the 
 value of y. The source of this N rune is pro- 
 bably the Thracian Y, which in the Sigean 
 inscription is written Y . The closed form $ , 
 which is found on the Vadstena bracteate, is 
 also very ancient, and may be regarded as the 
 parent of the other closed forms, which are of 
 considerably later date. It is probable that the 
 Thracian Y was developed from O through V. 
 The rune () may be regarded either as derived 
 from a Greek form intermediate between O and 
 V, or as a development from O, or it may have 
 been obtained from V by the curvature and slight 
 prolongation of the two strokes. An argument, 
 of no very great weight perhaps, in favour of 
 the last view is derived from the Alphabet of 
 
 1 Stephens, Runic Monuments, pp. 176, 545. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 173. 
 
Unstable Forms. 65 
 
 Ulphilas, in which the symbol for v has the two 
 equivalent forms V and X>, one open and the 
 other closed, which correspond to the open and 
 closed forms of the y rune. This looks as if in 
 the Futhorc from which Ulphilas compiled his 
 alphabet the forms N and $ were descendants 
 of equivalent value from the Greek equivalents 
 Y and V. 
 
 The Greek H was the common parent of the 
 seemingly unrelated runes M, N, and / V. The 
 Thracian H, as we have seen, had the double 
 power of fj and h. It may be regarded as a 
 palseographic axiom that a character which bears 
 two values is essentially unstable in form. Just 
 as the double values of I and C involved the 
 evolution of the new letters J and G, so the 
 Greek H was differentiated in form in order to 
 avoid the confusion which was caused by the 
 vowel and the aspirate being represented by the 
 same symbol. This differentiation was effected in 
 different modes by different nations. In Italy the 
 character H was retained to denote the aspirate, 
 while in Greece the vowel continued to be ex- 
 pressed by the unaltered symbol H, out of which, 
 
66 The Vowels. 
 
 by successive curtailments, the signs h, r, c, and c 
 were developed to denote the aspirate. Among 
 the Goths the two powers of the Thracian H 
 came to be distinguished by the simple and 
 obvious device of changing the position of the 
 cross stroke. To denote the vowel the cross 
 stroke was moved upwards, retaining its hori- 
 zontality, while to express the aspirate the cross 
 stroke was written in a more or less oblique 
 direction. In the very earliest runic inscriptions 
 these changes can be observed in progress. Thus 
 on the Thorsbjerg scabbard, the Dalby diadem, 
 or the Krogstad stone, the e rune has the 
 form n. But in this shape it was liable to 
 confusion with the rune h, which denoted u, 
 and hence we find in inscriptions of a some- 
 what later date that the cross stroke begins to 
 be drawn with a very slight downward curve 
 or bend, and we get H for e, as on the knife 
 handle from the Kragehul Moss, and the plane 
 from the Vi Moss. From this form the transition 
 is easy to the final shape M. The adoption of 
 this form involved tbe correlated change of the 
 m rune from M to M, as has been already noted. 
 
Evolution of the Aspirate. 67 
 
 The h rune preserved the greatest resemblance 
 to the form of the parent letter, affording another 
 instance of the way in which the alphabets de- 
 rived from the Thracian and Italian colonies 
 agree in their divergence from the standard Greek 
 forms. On the Buzeo torque the Thracian H 
 stands unaltered, and denotes h. Other very 
 early forms are H or H, and N or M. About 
 the fifth century we get N, and finally the old 
 h rune derived from eta was altogether dropped, 
 and a new h ruue, %, was developed by the 
 debilitation of a primitive guttural, either Y 
 or X, into a simple aspirate. The change of 
 the h rune from H to N brought about, as has 
 already been noted, the correlated change of the 
 11 rune from N to +. 
 
 The thirteenth rune in the Futhorc is written 
 indifferently \ and >/\ It will be observed that 
 these two forms can easily be obtained from 
 N and M, the early forms of the h rune, by 
 shortening the two upright strokes, and then 
 bringing the cross bar into a more nearly vertical 
 position. In the oldest of the MS. Futhorcs 
 (Isidore Codex, Brussels), the value of this rune 
 
 p 2 
 
68 The I azeds. 
 
 is stated to be ih, that is, an aspirated i, just 
 as M was at first eh, an aspirated e. In the 
 famous Vienna Codex (Salisb. Xo. 140). which 
 stands second in antiquity and authority, the 
 rune "V bears the name ih, and is said to have 
 the power of A as well as of i, that is, it was 
 use! indifferentlr, like its parent the old Greek 
 H, both as a vowel and as an aspirate. In 
 later MSS. the rune has assigned to it the 
 values 1, h. and eo. and the form melts into 
 1 and I. 
 
 A confirmation of the common parentage of 
 these runes is obtained from the consideration of 
 their uames. It may be laid down as a general 
 principle, which will hereafter receive abundant 
 illustration, that the relationship of related runes 
 will usually be indicated by the relationship of 
 their names, as well as of their forms. Obviouslv, 
 when two runes have proceeded from a common 
 parent rune,, the development of the names will 
 usually have proceeded pari passu with the 
 development of the forms and powers. Thus 
 in the case of the three late Anglian runes 
 P, £, P, which bear respectively the powers of 
 
Development of Rune Names. 69 
 
 a, a, and 0, the relationship between the three 
 names esse, as, and os, is as plain as the con- 
 nection of the forms. 
 
 This general principle may be applied to the 
 three runes M, H, \. In the earliest of the 
 MS. Futhorcs the runes M and 'V bear the 
 closely related names hcec and hie ; in later 
 MSS. we get eeh and eoh ; the most usual 
 names being eh and ih. The common parentage 
 of these names is even more obvious than the 
 common parentage of the forms, and the oldest 
 of the names clearly indicate that the parent 
 rune had the power of an aspirated vowel, pro- 
 bably he. The name of the h rune has in some 
 way acquired a final I 1 , and is variously written 
 hegl, hcegl, hagal, hegil, but we have also the 
 names heih and he, which connect the name of 
 the h rune with the two vowel names eh and ih. 
 
 We thus arrive at the result that of the 
 twenty-four primitive runes, twelve, namely, 
 l\ a, M, +, *, l>, I, *, X H, M, \, 
 
 1 Probably the accidental resemblance in the form of the 
 runes H, h, and h , s, may have caused an assimilation of their 
 names, hegil and segil. 
 
•jo The Mutes. 
 
 are descended with comparatively little change 
 from the ten Thracian letters 
 
 r, I*, m, m, s, &, i, a y, h. 
 
 § 12. The Mutes. 
 
 The easier half of our task is now completed. 
 It still remains to deal with the characters which 
 represent the mutes, sounds which are specially 
 subject to phonetic change, and which, in the 
 Teutonic languages, have undergone those sys- 
 tematic modifications which are formulated under 
 the designation of Grimm's Law. 
 
 Following the familiar nomenclature, which, if 
 not strictly scientific, is more convenient than 
 any other, we may divide the mutes into the 
 three families of dentals, labials, and gutturals, 
 and into the three classes of Hard, Soft, and 
 Aspirate. Following this division we have — 
 
 
 Hakd. 
 
 Aspirate. 
 
 SOFT, 
 
 Dentals . . 
 
 t . 
 
 . 6 . 
 
 . d 
 
 Labials . 
 
 ■ P ■ 
 
 ■ f ■ 
 
 . b 
 
 Gutturals . 
 
 . k . 
 
 X 
 
 • 9 
 
The Dentals. 71 
 
 In the Teutonic languages, as a rule, dentals 
 only interchange with dentals, labials with labials, 
 and gutturals with gutturals. It will therefore 
 be convenient to discuss separately each of the 
 families of mutes, beginning with the dentals, 
 as they offer less difficulty than the other 
 families. 
 
 § 13. The Dentals. 
 
 The dentals of the Thracian Alphabet were 
 T, ^, and 0. In the earliest Runic inscriptions 
 the dentals appear in the forms 1\ ^, and El 1 . 
 The resemblance of form between the three Greek 
 and the three Eunic dentals is so striking, that 
 it is difficult to doubt the descent of the one set 
 from the other. But we are confronted with the 
 difficulty that the runic characters have not re- 
 tained the powers which they possessed in the 
 Greek alphabet, while the changes which they 
 have undergone are not in accordance with the 
 changes prescribed by Grimm's Law. 
 
 1 This very primitive form occurs on the Frohaug bronze, 
 which I take to be the oldest runic monument in existence. 
 The usual early form of this rune is M, and the later form 
 
 is H 
 
The Dentals. 
 
 The problem may be stated as follows. The 
 three Greek dentals, T, ®, >, must have come 
 into the possession of the Goths several centuries 
 before the Christian era. We lose sight of them 
 for six centuries, when they emerge from the 
 darkness with altered values, but with forms so 
 little changed that there can be no doubt as to 
 their identity. The values are now t, d, th, in- 
 stead of t, th, d as in the Greek alphabet, or 
 th, d, t as required by Grimm's Law. 
 
 Here we have a fact of great interest and 
 importance, which cannot fail to throw con- 
 siderable light on recent controversies as to the 
 date and nature of the changes which go by the 
 name of Grimm's Law. In the first place our 
 result is, I think, quite fatal to Grimm's own 
 belief that the Gothic Lautverschiebung did not 
 commence before the middle of the first century 
 a.d., and that it was fully completed before 
 the time of Ulphilas. In the next place our 
 result is difficult to reconcile with the prevalent 
 conception as to the way in which the Lautver- 
 schiebung took place, the so-called Chronological 
 Hypothesis. On the Chronological Hypothesis it 
 
Grimm's Law. 73 
 
 would, I suppose, be necessary, in order to ac- 
 count for the facts, to assume with Mr. Sweet 1 
 that T, the strongest of the dentals, was the 
 first to be attacked by debilitation, and that it 
 bore in succession the values t, ih, d, t ; that 
 ^ changed from d through t to ih, while ® 
 changed simply from ih to d. 
 
 Obviously inadmissible is the supposition that 
 ^, the easiest of the dentals, was the first to 
 be attacked by debilitation, that it changed 
 through t, the most difficult sound, to ih ; while 
 changed from ih to d, and T retained its 
 power throughout. 
 
 The most simple explanation is to suppose 
 with G. Curtius that debilitation commenced 
 with ®, the most unstable of the dentals. In 
 accordance with phonetic law the debilitation 
 must have been from ih to d. Then, by the 
 Principle of Cross Compensation 2 , ^ took the 
 value of ih, while T, a very stable sound, re- 
 mained unchanged. 
 
 1 Mr. Sweet lays it down as 'an important phonetic law' 
 that 'general weakening tendencies attack the strongest. articu- 
 lations first.' 2 See Douse, Grimm's Law, p. 38. 
 
74 The Labials. 
 
 This explanation, which seems to be simple, 
 rational, and adequate, though difficult to re- 
 concile with the Chronological Hypothesis, is, 
 I think, consistent with Mr. Douse's ingenious 
 theory as to the nature of the Lautverscliiebung. 
 
 $14. The Labials. 
 
 We now come to the labials, b, p, /• It might 
 naturally be supposed that the three runic labials, 
 IS, DJ, V , were derived directly from the three 
 Greek labials, IS, II, F. Further consideration 
 does not tend to commend this supposition. In 
 the first place it can hardly be affirmed that the 
 Thracian alphabet possessed an /, or the Gothic 
 language a p. The digamma, which was the 
 source of the Latin F, had the power of v rather 
 than of /, and it is more than doubtful whether 
 it passed at all into the Thracian alphabet. The 
 new letter <J>, which replaced it, was only 
 struggling into existence, and had the power 
 of ph rather than of /. On the other hand p can 
 scarcely be claimed as a true Low German sound. 
 In Fick's Wortschatz der gertnanischen Sprachein- 
 
Runic Labials all derived from Beta. 75 
 
 heit six words only, all of which are probably 
 loan words, begin with p, and in Csedmon and 
 Beowulf, taken together, there are only three 
 such words. Ulphilas uses the Greek letter II 
 for the transliteration of such foreign words as 
 Pontius Pilate, Paul, presbyter, and prophet, 
 but his adoption of the Greek letter is an indi- 
 cation that in his time the p rune was either 
 unknown or unfamiliar to the Goths. The p 
 rune does not occur in any early runic inscription 
 — it retained its place in the Futhorcs, but, 
 practically, it seems to have been disused. 
 
 Hence it would appear that b was the only 
 labial which was familiar both to Thracians and 
 Goths at the time when the runes originated. 
 
 The epigraphic evidence points also to the 
 conclusion that the p and / runes were not inde- 
 pendently derived from the Greek alphabet, but 
 were gradually developed out of I*. 
 
 The forms as well as the names of the runic 
 labials are suspiciously similar, unstable, and 
 interchangeable. In the case of the dentals the 
 three forms 1 s , ^, M, are singularly distinct and 
 constant, and their names, tie, thorn, and dag 
 
76 The Labials. 
 
 are manifestly unrelated words. But with the 
 labials both the names and the forms seem to 
 diverge from a single primitive source, as in the 
 case of the groups of runes derived from E and 
 H (pp. 68, 69). 
 
 First, as to the names of these three runes. 
 The final forms into which the names crystalized, 
 here, peorth, and fe, are sufficiently diverse, but 
 a comparison of the numerous MS. Futhorcs 
 shews no such clear distinction. The typical 
 variations in the names are as follows : — 
 
 b rune : bearic, beorc, here, berch, brita, berith, biro. 
 p rune : perc, perch, peorth, perd. pear, peoih. 
 f rune : fech, fehe, fer, feoh, /eh, feu, fe. 
 
 These names may be easily accounted for as 
 successive debilitations of three primitive names, 
 beric, peric, and feeic, and of these we may 
 consider beric as the ultimate source from which 
 all the names have been derived. 
 
 The forms of the three runic labials, no less 
 than their names, indicate a development out of 
 a single primitive rune. The following forms 
 are selected out of a much larger number as 
 representatives of the principal types. 
 
Parallel Development of Names and Forms. 7 7 
 
 6 rune :&BEEtfKE4 s 1 
 
 irane: M i K K RK ^ KK 
 /rune: ^BbKPfcKPr 
 All these forms can be explained as develop- 
 ments out of a primitive form £ or B. Some 
 of them are especially significant. Thus M is 
 a b which has reached the half-way stage of 
 development into an /, while B is an / wbich 
 has only partially divested itself of the charac- 
 teristics of b. 
 
 Forms of the / type such as V , £ 5 si , or K, 
 are sometimes used for b, both in earlj and late 
 monuments, as the heathen Forsa ring, the 
 heathen Kok stone, the Largs broach, and the 
 runic stones in the Isle of Man. 
 
 The development of the labials was hardly 
 completed in the time of Dlphilas. This is indi- 
 cated by his adoption of the Greek II for p, as 
 well as by his use of K for b, and of fc for /. 
 His half-opened b is arrested in the first stage 
 of the development into /, and the curved hooks 
 of his / are survivals, as it were, of the complete 
 loops of the B. 
 
 It is not difficult to perceive the process by 
 
78 The Labials. 
 
 which the p and / runes were developed. The 
 parent rune & has a vertical stroke and four 
 oblique bars. The transitional forms K , K show 
 that the ' p rune, C , has retained the vertical 
 stroke, together with the second and third of 
 the oblique bars, while the transitional forms B 
 and b show that the / rune, P or V ', has retained 
 the vertical stroke of the &, together with the 
 second and fourth of the oblique bars. 
 
 It will be observed that the runes for /, p, 
 and b occupy in the Futhorc the approximate 
 places of the Greek letters /3, -k, and <p. That 
 the new rune Y with its new power /should have 
 taken the place of the Greek Ifc, proves that the 
 development of the new symbol accompanied and 
 connoted the development of the new sound ; 
 in other words, the phonetic change was the 
 efficient cause of the new alphabetic develop- 
 ment. There are other illustrations of this im- 
 portant principle. In the earliest Futhorcs the 
 third and fourth runes, ^ and fc, retain the 
 relative positions of their Greek prototypes, > 
 and E. But in the later Futhorcs we find a 
 new development, \&, with the new value 0, 
 
Stages of the Development. 79 
 
 occupying the fourth station, while the old rune 
 £, with its old value, a or ce, is relegated to 
 the end of the Futhorc as No. 26. 
 
 The probable stages by which the develop- 
 ment and rearrangement of the labials was 
 effected may be tabulated as follows : — 
 
 
 2nd letter. 15th letter. 
 
 21st letter, 
 
 1st stage 
 
 B k * (b) P (p) 
 
 tQA) 
 
 2nd stage 
 
 B.(p) '••*•(*>) 
 
 4> CpA) 
 
 3rd stage 
 
 *(/)'"'••* (P)' ' 
 
 ■ ■* (6) 
 
 4th stage 
 
 & (/) IX (p) 
 
 *<&) 
 
 5th stage 
 
 t (/) * (P) 
 
 *(&) 
 
 
 1st nine. 14th rune. 
 
 1 8th rune. 
 
 < 
 
 > 15. The Guttukals. 
 
 
 All the primitive runes have now been traced 
 to their Thracian prototypes with the exception 
 of six, A, <, X, ^, Y, &. These represent the 
 gutturals and their developments. The tendency 
 of gutturals to weaken into breaths and vowels !• 
 is illustrated by the development of the Greek 
 breaths and vowels out of the Semitic gutturals, 
 and is exhibited in Teutonic languages by the 
 
80 The Gutturals. 
 
 Gothic words galeiks, ganohs, gavaknan, bagms, 
 which are represented in English by alike, enough, 
 awake, beam ; or by the descent of the words eye, 
 ye, yea, yoke, among, along, from the Anglo- 
 Saxon eage, ge, gea, geoc, gemang, gelang. 
 
 We may therefore regard as an instance of 
 normal debilitation the descent from the Greek 
 gamma of the rune n, which had the power of 
 u and afterwards of y. In the earlier runic in- 
 scriptions, such as those on the Buzeo torque 
 and the Thorsbjerg clasp, this u rune appears in 
 the form A, which is precisely the shape of the 
 Thracian g. The identification of the Runic and 
 Thracian symbol A is confirmed by the position 
 of the rune in the Futhorc. It retains the exact 
 place of gamma between Y and |>, which re- 
 present respectively beta and delta. As was the 
 case with the / and b runes, the symbol of the 
 new sound retains the old station, the runic 
 guttural <, which also descended from gamma, 
 being moved to another place in the Futhorc. 
 
 The rune X has already been explained 1 . In 
 
 1 See p. 36, supra. 
 
The Gamma Runes. 81 
 
 the Greek alphabet this symbol had the power 
 of ch, and in the Gothic Futhorc of g. The 
 change involves no difficulty, as by phonetic law 
 a Greek x regularly corresponds to a Gothic g. 
 
 This debilitation, by the Principle of Cross 
 Compensation, would involve the hardening of 
 the g into k or kh, a change which is usually 
 expressed by the statement that by Grimm's 
 Law a Gothic c (k) is the regular equivalent of 
 a Greek y. Now the Thracian gamma was 
 written in the two forms A and <. We have 
 just seen that the first of these forms, by the 
 regular process of debilitation, gives us A, the 
 early form of the u rune, while <, the other 
 form of the Greek gamma, gave birth to the 
 Latin C, and also became <, which is the 
 regular c rune in the earliest inscriptions. In 
 the fourth and fifth centuries the two early 
 forms, A, u, and K, c, began to fall into disuse, 
 and we can trace their gradual replacement by 
 h and n for u, and by h, A, h, k, for c, forms 
 which are obviously akin to the normal or A 
 form of the Thracian gamma. 
 
 It has already been suggested that the puzzling 
 
82 The Gutturals. 
 
 twelfth rune N, y, may be descended from the 
 Greek Y. It is however quite possible that this 
 rune may also be a descendant of gamma. This 
 supposition is made more probable by the name 
 ger, which seems to be akin to ur, the name of 
 the u rune, and also by the fact that the later 
 Scandinavian runes for y and a, namely A\, yr, 
 and A, ar, clearly belong to the gamma family 
 of runes, being descended from the A form of 
 the c rune. 
 
 Eespecting the development of the ng rune, £, 
 nothing need be added to what has been said 
 already. The numerous early variants, such as 
 <ty, O, v, \\, Z, 2, Q, <>, and other similar 
 forms given by Professor Stephens 1 , can leave 
 no doubt that the rune # was developed by a 
 reduplication of the < rune, a development which 
 supplies an argument which is as cogent in 
 favour of the Greek origin of the runes as it 
 is difficult to reconcile with the Latin or any 
 other hypothesis. 
 
 The eighth and the fifteenth runes, ^ and Y, 
 
 1 Runic Monuments, p. 149. 
 
Derivatives from Koppa. 83 
 
 are less easy to deal with. They are probably 
 to be referred to the Greek letters Q and Y, 
 two differentiated forms of the Semitic letter j5 
 (koph). These two gutturals established them- 
 selves in the Greek colonies of Italy and Thrace, 
 but in the alphabet of Hellas they were ulti- 
 mately supplanted by K and X, derivatives of 
 the Semitic 2 (Jcaph). In the standard Greek 
 alphabet the letter <p, *!, or H survived only 
 as the numeral koppa, 1 or h. In Italy it ap- 
 pears as the labialized guttural Q, and from 
 the Thracian alphabet 1 , through the medium of 
 the Slavonic runes, it passed into the Russian 
 alphabet as the letter H (tsherv). The other 
 descendant of koph, which is written Y or ^V in 
 the early Greek inscriptions, had the power of 
 the aspirated guttural. This letter was replaced 
 in the standard Greek alphabet by X, and the 
 disused symbol Y was afterwards employed to 
 
 1 The koppa was retained in the Alphabet of the Isles, and 
 seems to haye been introduced into Thrace from the Parian 
 colony of Thasos and the Chacidian colony of Chalcidice. See 
 Lenormant, art. Alphabet, in Daremberg's Dictionnaire dea 
 Antiqv/Uis, p. 202. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 The Gutturals. 
 
 denote the double consonant ps. But Y, with the 
 value ch, continued, like 9' to be usecl botl1 iu 
 Italy and Thrace. It is found in the Caere 
 syhabarium and in the Bomarzo alphabet, and 
 established itself in Upper Italy among the 
 TJmbrians and Etruscans 1 - From the Thracian 
 alphabet the letter Y as a guttural passed into 
 the Slavonic runes, and both its form and its 
 power may be recognized in the Old Slavonic 
 letter 4 J , which is the parent of the modern 
 Russian letter JB, (shcha). 
 
 The rune Y is frequent in the early Scandi- 
 navian inscriptions ; it is very constant in its 
 form, which is exactly that of the old Greek 
 letter, but to a most perplexing extent it is 
 variable or uncertain in its value. It cannot be 
 doubted that in some inscriptions it has the 
 
 1 Fabretti, Osservazioni PoleograficM, § 121. As in the case 
 of the letters r and h, so with regard to the parentage of the 
 gutturals it will be observed that the Italic and Kunic alphabets 
 exhibit common features as to which they both differ from the 
 Greek. The conjecture has already been put forward that this 
 may be due to the fact that both Italy and Thrace were colonized 
 from the over-peopled Greek islands, the alphabet of which 
 differed from the alphabet of the mainland which became the 
 parent of the standard Greek alphabet. 
 
The Ilix Rune. 
 
 power of a vowel. Professor Munch gives it the 
 power of a neutral vowel, Finn Magnusen takes 
 it as equivalent to y, while Professor Stephens 
 maintains that it must be a. In the MS. 
 Futhorcs it has assigned to it the values of 
 i, y, iu, c, Ju, x, and it bears the correspond- 
 ing names of ilix, ilcs, iolx, eolhx, dux, cede, 
 halh, and hedach. These values and names 
 make it manifest that the Y rune must have 
 originally descended from a guttural, which, like 
 the other primitive gutturals, developed a vowel 
 sound side by side with the guttural power 
 which it retained. The rune also acquired the 
 value of a; in the same way that X, which 
 supplanted Y in the Greek alphabet as the 
 aspirated guttural, came to denote x iu the 
 Latin alphabet. 
 
 A further indication of the descent of this 
 rune from hoph through hoppa is the note- 
 worthy fact that Y retains in the Futhorc the 
 original station of hoph, following next after p 
 and preceding s and t. 
 
 The other Greek derivatives of the Semitic 
 hoph were <p and H. To these forms I venture, 
 
86 The Gutturals. 
 
 not without considerable hesitation, to refer the 
 two runes, t> and Y. The early rune V or P 
 bears the names wen, ven, uyn, and huun, and has 
 the power of v, w, and uu. About the seventh 
 century A.r>. the c rune < or ^ was supplanted 
 in Scandinavia by the rune Y or V , which was 
 called by the names cen, ken, chen, chon, and 
 qhon, and had the power of c, k, and q. The 
 names and powers of these two runes ^ and Y , 
 wen and cen, seem to point to a common descent 
 from a labialized guttural qven, with the power 
 of kv. That a primitive kv might yield either 
 a semi-vowel or a pure guttural is shown by the 
 related pairs of words-' — venire and come, garden 
 and yard, guardian and warden, kin and wean, 
 curb and warp, Korepos, uter and whether, gable 
 and web, cheese and yeast, question and whisper. 
 The evidence of the Mceso- Gothic alphabet 
 is, on the whole, in favour of the origin of the 
 two runes P* and Y from the Greek koppa, 
 or H. The three symbols IT (p) t\, and J£ (r) are 
 employed by Ulphilas as numerals, with the 
 values 80, 90, and 100, thereby showing that 
 the second of these symbols c| is the represen- 
 
Wen and Cen. 87 
 
 tative of the Greek koppa and the Latin Q. 
 Although the power of this symbol (^ is not 
 alphabetic, but solely numerical, we have also 
 the slightly differentiated form CI, with the al- 
 phabetic power of q {kv) 1 . The Mceso- Gothic 
 alphabet has also the symbol bearing the 
 power of hv, which can best be explained as a 
 descendant of the Greek <p, <p, or <p (koppa). 
 We may therefore consider the Mceso -Gothic 
 letters ci, kv, and O, hv, as the representatives of 
 the runes Y and I*. 
 
 Our investigation into the origin of the twenty- 
 four runes of the primitive Gothic Futhorc is now 
 complete. It must be frankly acknowledged that 
 the affiliation of the eighth and twelfth runes, 
 ^ and N , is open to considerable doubt, but 
 
 1 It may be a question whether the Mceso -Gothic letter 
 y or t> (v) may not be descended from O (koppa) instead 
 of from Y as has been previously suggested (p. 65). The 
 name uuine, which it bears in the Vienna Codex, certainly 
 suggests a connection with the wen and cen runes. It is 
 also a question whether the Moeso-Gothic Q (j) which some- 
 times transliterates the Greek iota (2 Tim. iii. 8) may not be 
 derived from (koppa). But its name jer, and the balance 
 of the evidence, is, I think, in favour of a connection with 
 the twelfth rune ^ gee. 
 
88 The Later Runes. 
 
 as to the remaining twenty-two runes I trust 
 that the evidence which it has been possible to 
 produce may be deemed reasonably conclusive, 
 especially when it is remembered that the record 
 of the monuments is not continuous ; the inscrip- 
 tions from which we derive the Thracian letters 
 on the one hand, and the earliest runic forms 
 on the other, being separated by five cen- 
 turies of epigraphic silence. It is this chasm 
 in the evidence which has hitherto guarded so 
 effectually the secret of the runes. 
 
 § 16. The Later Ecnes. 
 
 The foregoing investigation has been confined 
 to the runes of the early Gothic Futhorc. A few 
 words, however, must be said concerning the 
 development of the later Futhorcs, in which 
 nine-tenths of the extant runic monuments are 
 written. 
 
 It was an object with Christian missionaries 
 to substitute the Latin alphabet for the runic 
 writing, which was regarded as a sign of heathen- 
 dom. In spite, however, of this powerful in- 
 
Gradual Disuse of the Runes. 89 
 
 fluence it was long before the use of the runes 
 was entirely suppressed. The use of the Visi- 
 gothic runes in Spain was condemned by the 
 Council of Toledo in 11 15. In Denmark and 
 in Iceland the runes were not formally super- 
 seded by the Latin alphabet till the fourteenth 
 century. In Sweden the runes were officially 
 replaced by the Latin letters in the eleventh 
 century, but they continued in popular use for 
 a considerable time. Thus at Haide (Sweden) 
 there is a runic inscription which records the 
 burning of the church in the year 1397 1 , and 
 in Lye Church (Sweden) there are two large 
 runic sepulchral slabs which bear the date 
 1449 2 - 
 
 In England the practical disuse of the runes 
 took place at a much earlier time. They survived 
 longest among the Northmen of Cumberland. 
 The • latest dated examples which I have been 
 able to discover are a runic inscription in Carlisle 
 Cathedral which dates from the year 1092 ; a 
 
 1 Stephens, Bimic Monv/ments, p. 711. 
 
 2 lb; P- 752. 
 
90 The Later Runes. 
 
 twelfth century runic font at Bridekirk in Cum- 
 berland ; and a rock x engraved with runes at 
 Barnspike in Cumberland, which records the 
 treacherous slaughter of Gillhes Bueth, owner 
 of the lands of Lanercost, by a Norman knight, 
 Bobert de Yaux, a deed which must have taken 
 place between 1160 and 11 70 a.d. The runic 
 stones of the Isle of Man are usually assigned to 
 the eleventh century. The MS. Futhorcs, which 
 are very numerous, commonly contain only the 
 Anglian runes, and belong mostly to the ninth, 
 tenth, and eleventh centuries, though one Futhorc 
 seems to be as early as the eighth, and another 
 as late as the fourteenth century. 
 
 The runes of these later Futhorcs and inscrip- 
 tions naturally differ very considerably from those 
 of the earliest period. In fact the differences 
 between the Gothic runes of the third century, 
 and either the Anglian or Scandinavian runes 
 of the tenth, are at least as considerable as those 
 which separate the earliest Gothic runes from 
 the Greek alphabet. 
 
 1 Stephens, Runic Monuments, p. 648. 
 
Simplification of the Scandinavian Futhorc, g i 
 
 The changes which took place in the Scandi- 
 navian and Anglian Futhorcs were in opposite 
 directions. In Scandinavia, where the runes con- 
 tinued so long in practical use, the changes -were 
 in the direction of simplification. Of the twenty- 
 four primitive Gothic runes, eight, namely, X, 
 l>, \, Y, M, &, M, &, disappeared altogether 
 from the Scandinavian Futhorc, while in other 
 cases the old runes were replaced by new de- 
 velopments, or by more simple forms, such as 
 K, K, A\, A , Y, K 1 > which are well adapted 
 for engraving on stone. Thus not more than 
 nine or ten of the original Gothic runes continued 
 practically to be employed. 
 
 In England, on the other hand, the Latin 
 letters rapidly superseded the runes for all pur- 
 poses of ordinary use, and the runes were regarded 
 either as magical symbols, as cryptograms, or 
 merely as subjects of curiosity. Hence the 
 changes take the form of an arbitrary multi- 
 plication of symbols, . of fantastic developments 
 and inventions, or of blunders of ingenious or 
 ignorant penmen. These developments were so 
 extensive and so complicated that it would be 
 
92 The Later Runes. 
 
 impossible, within any moderate limits, to discuss 
 them adequately, or to attempt to trace their 
 genesis. From the MS. Futhorcs of the ninth 
 and following centuries I have, as a matter of 
 curiosity, extracted and catalogued as many as 
 eighty-four different varieties of Anglian gutturals 
 and vowels which may ultimately be traced back 
 to three only of the Greek letters, gamma, Jcojyjpa, 
 and chi. 
 
 In attempting to trace and classify these late 
 runes considerable difficulty arises from the con- 
 fusion between the descendants of different primi- 
 tive types ; forms belonging to one type having 
 acquired features, names, or values, which apper- 
 tain to some other type. Thus in one MS. Futhorc 
 the d rune, M, has assigned to it the name thorn 
 instead of dcecf, evidently from a confusion as to 
 the phonetic value ; in another Futhorc it is 
 called man instead of dag, the confusion having 
 in this case arisen from the close resemblance to 
 the form of the m rune, M ; in a third case, from 
 a similar cause, the values of the two runes £ 
 and £ are interchanged. Such instances could 
 easily be multiplied by the score. 
 
Elaboration of the Anglian Futhorc. 93 
 
 Not a few of these late forms are evidently 
 mere arbitrary fancies or ' elegancies' ; some, 
 however, are of exceptional interest or import- 
 ance, either because, as in the Anglian Futhorc, 
 they throw light on the phonetic tendencies of 
 the English language in its earlier stages, or 
 because, as in the case of the Scandinavian 
 runes, they were ultimately accepted as perma- 
 nent modifications of the. older Futhorc. 
 
 As examples of these later developments we 
 may take some of the secondary runes which 
 were derived from the ejosilon and gamma sym- 
 bols. It will be observed that here, well within 
 the range of historic proof, we have illustrations 
 of those principles of co-ordinate change of forms, 
 names, and powers, which have been assumed 
 as regulating the pre-historic development of 
 two or more runes from a common parentage. 
 
94 
 
 T/te Later Runes. 
 
 The chief developments of the cpsiloit runes 
 may be tabulated as follows : — 
 
 Values. 
 
 Forms. 
 
 Names. 
 
 
 e 
 
 ft 
 
 
 
 Greek, gth cent. b. o. 
 
 e 
 
 & 
 
 
 esc? 
 
 Nordenhoff, 4th cent. a.d. 
 
 <b a 
 
 P 
 
 
 sesc asc 
 ac ns 
 
 Anglian, 9th cent. 
 
 a aa 
 
 p 
 
 
 as asc 
 
 Anglian, 8th cent. 
 
 00 
 
 r* p 
 
 
 OS oos 
 
 ,, 10th cent. 
 
 
 
 1? * * 
 
 fe 
 
 OS 
 
 Scandinavian, 9th cent. 
 
 The developments of gamma are as interesting 
 as the developments of epsilon. We have — 
 
 Values. 
 
 Forms. 
 
 Names. 
 
 
 u 
 
 A 
 
 ur? 
 
 Buzeo, 3rd cent. 
 
 
 u 
 
 A 
 
 ur 
 
 Anglian, 8th cent. 
 
 
 u 
 
 n 
 
 ur 
 
 » >j 
 
 
 u 
 
 h 
 
 ur? 
 
 >> j) 
 
 
 oe 
 
 /k 
 
 oer? 
 
 /> y> 
 
 
 y 
 
 A 
 
 yi' 
 
 „ 9th cent. 
 
 
 y 
 
 fi» 
 
 J' 1 ' 
 
 >> » 
 
 
 y 
 
 A A 
 
 y r 
 
 Scandinavian. 
 
 
 03 
 
 + 
 
 rev? 
 
 „ 7 th cent. 
 
 
 a 
 
 * 
 
 ar 
 
 8 th cent. 
 
 
 a 
 
 A 
 
 ar? 
 
 ,, 10th cent. 
 
 
 k 
 
 A 
 
 ker 
 
 Anglian. 
 
 
 r 
 
 * 
 
 yr? 
 
 Scandinavian. 
 
 
Development of final r. 95 
 
 Noteworthy, from the phonetic point of view, 
 are the processes by which the Greek gamma 
 gave birth to the form A> with its threefold 
 powers of 1c, y, an! /•. The Anglian k rone 
 ier (?) may be traced through its successive 
 stages <, !"), h, A. ^, <4», and the Scandina- 
 vian y rune, yr, through the stages A. A, /K, 
 A\. In the eighth century this y rune, A, began 
 to be used to denote the r final, Thus on the 
 Snoldelev Stone 1 (date about 750 A.D.) we find 
 fc and A* employed side by side for the medial 
 and final r, and this usage afterwards became 
 general The development of this r final out 
 of y is interesting as an example of the well- 
 known tendency of a final open vowel to acquire 
 the trilL Thus from the Spanish palavna we 
 get palaver, and from el lagarto we obtain, 
 through Ben Jonson's aUigarta, our modern alli- 
 gator. Other instances are supplied by the 
 vulgarisms — taters, feller, jigger, Jemimer, for 
 potatoes, fellow, chigoe, Jemima ; ani even an 
 academical t rainin g does not always suffice to 
 
 1 Stephens. Bunic Monuments, p. 345, 
 
96 TJie Later Runes. 
 
 protect our ears on Sunday from ' Yictorier 
 our Queen.' 
 
 Perplexing as are the various powers of the 
 rune Y. which stands in the Anglian Futhorcs 
 for i, y, c, Tc, x, a further element of confusion is 
 introduced by the employment of the same symbol 
 to denote m in the later Scandinavian and M anx 
 inscriptions. By no legitimate phonetic process 
 can m be derived from either a vowel or a gut- 
 tural. Dr.Wimmer's characteristic allegation of an 
 arbitrary transformation of the symbol M into Y 
 through the intermediate stages ^"1, i^, ^, Y, 
 being obviously inadmissible, we must therefore 
 seek some other origin for this rune. Now the 
 tendency of f and b to become m by assimilation 
 is well known. Thus the Latin formica cor- 
 responds to the Greek fivpw^ and the Norse 
 maur. We have also the related groups of 
 "words Sporos, fj.opro9, mors and murder ; anfipoTos 
 and immortal is ; fiopfiw and formido; nokvfiSos, 
 plumbum, and blei. This interchange is more 
 especially characteristic of the Keltic languages, 
 and it is chiefly in the Isle of Man, and in Scan- 
 dinavia at a time subsequent to the Irish and 
 
The new Runes for m and h. 97 
 
 Hebridean conquests of the Northmen, that we 
 find the Y rune standing for m. I would there- 
 fore venture to suggest, in default of any better 
 explanation, that this rune, on which so much 
 speculation has been expended, may have arisen 
 through Keltic influence out of the old tran- 
 sitional rune <j> for b or /. At Maeshowe in 
 Orkney we find the transitional form ^ for m. 
 Other early forms of the Y symbol for m are 
 <f, ^, and <p, which are easily connected with 
 B or ^. On the Holm stone again we have 
 an m which is almost identical in form with the 
 ordinary / rune. 
 
 The Anglian rune H, which first appears on 
 the Charnay broach, grew out of, and supplanted 
 the earlier h rune H. In Scandinavia, however, 
 the new h rune was ^, a development which 
 cannot be derived from H. There are two ways 
 in which this ^ rune may have arisen, either 
 from X or from Y. On the Skaag stone, which 
 is assigned to the third century 1 , we find X, g, 
 and also #, which has the power of gi or ge, 
 
 1 Stephens, Runic Monuments, p. 887. 
 H 
 
98 The Later Runes. 
 
 and is apparently a bind-rune for XI. In later 
 inscriptions >j« and * have the power sometimes 
 of g, sometimes of h, and often of as or a. These 
 phonetic developments are regular, as we see 
 from the A. S. ge-mang, which became hi-mong 
 in Northern and a-mong in Southern English. 
 So also A. S. be-ge-ondan became li-hi-onda in 
 the north of England and be-y-ond in the south. 
 The evidence of the monuments thus seems to 
 point to the evolution of ^ from X I , but the 
 evidence of the Futhorcs is the other way. In 
 the Futhorc on the Charnay broach the fifteenth 
 rune is written %, instead of in the usual form 
 Y, and in some Anglian Futhorcs the rune # 
 has assigned to it the power of k or g, and is 
 called gilc, gilch, chilch, and halh, names which 
 indicate a descent from the calc or ilix rune Y, 
 by a downward prolongation of the two cross 
 strokes. 
 
 The mysterious rune M, called stan, which has 
 the power of st and ss, may here be noticed, not 
 on account of its importance in the Futhorc, 
 but as affording a very curious record of the 
 operation of one of the laws of Gothic pho- 
 
The Stan Rune. 99 
 
 nology. In Gothic, d and t in juxtaposition 
 become st, and st frequently becomes ss. Thus 
 from the root bud, to bid, the 2nd pers. sing. 
 praet. is bau-s-t for *bau-d-t ; also from the root 
 vit, to know, through *vit-da and *vista we get 
 vissa ; and from vad, to bind, comes gaviss, 
 through *gavisti. Hence the late rune H, st 
 or ss, is easily explained as a differentiation of 
 the old rune Dd c£. 
 
 § 17. The Order of the Runes. 
 
 The Mediterranean alphabets have preserved, 
 essentially, the primitive order of the Semitic 
 letters. The deviation of the runes in the 
 Futhorc from this ancient order has been the 
 subject of many ingenious speculations, but has 
 never, I believe, been satisfactorily accounted 
 for. 
 
 It is obvious that the order of the runes in 
 the Futhorc presents certain points of agreement 
 with the order of the letters in the Greek 
 alphabet. Thus the Futhorc ends with &, which 
 is manifestly the descendant of the Greek f\. 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo The Order of the Runes. 
 
 It has been shown in the foregoing pages that 
 the first four runes in the Futhorc, Y , h, P, fc, 
 are the direct descendants of Ifc, I", A, E, the 
 second, third, fourth, and fifth letters of the 
 Greek alphabet. In the middle of the Futhorc 
 we have a similar sequence, the runes DC, Y, 
 $, 1\ corresponding to the letters P, <p, [ft], 
 *, T. 
 
 It is impossible that such remarkable corres- 
 pondencies can have been wholly accidental ; they 
 must be surviving traces of the primitive order 
 of the runes, which must have been that of the 
 Greek alphabet. It seems therefore to be worth 
 while to pursue the investigation a step farther, 
 and to endeavour to ascertain whether the dis- 
 locations in the order of the runes can be 
 accounted for on scientific principles. I am not 
 aware that these principles have ever been form- 
 ulated, it will therefore be necessary to estab- 
 lish them by an examination of the causes 
 which have produced the dislocations in the 
 order of other known alphabets ; such, for 
 instance, as the Ethiopic, Armenian, Persian, 
 Turkish, or Arabic. An easy illustration is 
 
Causes of Alphabetic Dislocation. 101 
 
 afforded by the Arabic alphabet. The Arabic 
 alphabet was derived from the Aramaic ; the 
 order of the letters has suffered very consider- 
 able dislocation, but, owing to the retention of 
 the ancient names, and also of the primitive 
 numerical values, it becomes extremely easy to 
 identify them. In the Syriac alphabet, another 
 descendant of the Aramaic, the old order of 
 the letters has been preserved. By placing the 
 Arabic and Syriac alphabets side by side the 
 reasons of the changes in the order of the 
 Arabic letters become at once manifest. We 
 thus obtain the following table, in which 
 the connections by dotted lines shew which 
 of the Arabic letters have not been shifted from 
 their original places. The bracketed letters are 
 differentiated forms, evolved subsequently to the 
 dislocations. 
 
102 
 
 The Order of the Runes. 
 
 SYRIAC. 
 
 ARABIC. 
 
 Names. 
 
 Forms. 
 
 Numerical Values. 
 
 Names. 
 
 FOKMS. 
 
 Numerical 
 Values. 
 
 Olaph 
 
 Beth 
 
 Gomal 
 
 i 
 
 CO 
 
 
 Elif 
 
 Ba 
 fTa 
 iTha 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 2 
 400 
 
 
 
 <<s, 
 
 3 ; 
 
 uy 
 
 Dolath 
 
 j 
 
 4 1 
 
 O 
 
 500 
 
 He 
 
 Vau 
 
 Zain 
 
 Cheth 
 
 Teth 
 
 Yud 
 
 Ol 
 
 o 
 
 1 
 «4 
 
 : 
 
 
 Jim 
 |Hha 
 (Cha 
 |Dal 
 iDhal 
 
 Ra 
 
 C 
 
 c 
 
 j 
 
 3 
 8 
 600 
 
 4 
 
 700 
 
 200 
 
 5 
 6 
 
 7 ... 
 
 8 : 
 
 
 
 
 9 .... 
 
 
 *_# 
 
 
 
 >> 
 
 Koph 
 
 Lomad 
 
 Mim 
 
 Nun 
 
 Semcath 
 
 Ee 
 
 Pe 
 
 r 
 
 V 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 Zay 
 Sin 
 Shin 
 |Ssad 
 iDdad 
 jTta 
 iZza 
 
 j 
 
 k 
 
 7 
 
 60 
 
 300 
 
 90 
 
 800 
 
 9 
 900 
 
 3 — 
 
 40-. 
 
 50 -. 
 
 60 : 
 
 70 
 
 80 
 
 
 
 
 Tsode 
 Quph 
 Bish 
 
 J 
 
 CO 
 ) 
 
 90 
 IOO 
 200 
 
 
 
 
 
 (Ain 
 vGhain 
 Fa 
 
 
 70 
 
 1000 
 
 80 
 
 Shin 
 Tau 
 
 
 300 
 400 
 
 
 
 
 
 Qaf 
 Kaf 
 
 el 
 
 100 
 20 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lam 
 
 J 
 
 3° 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mim 
 
 c 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 
 Nun 
 
 u 
 
 5° 
 
 
 
 
 Ha 
 
 IS 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 Waw 
 
 J 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 Ya 
 
 " 
 
 10 
 
Dislocations in the Arabic Alphabet. 103 
 
 It will be observed that the Arabic dislo- 
 cations have been brought about by two causes. 
 Certain letters have been placed side by side 
 for the -purpose of easier comparison, either 
 (1) on account of a close resemblance in their 
 forms; or (2) because of the similarity of their 
 values. Thus Ta has been brought from the 
 end of the alphabet into the third station, 
 because of the resemblance in form to Ba ; while 
 Ra, for a like reason, has been moved up four- 
 teen places, and placed next to Zay. The 
 juxtapositions of Qaf and Kaf, and of Waw 
 and Ya, are due to the similarity of their powers. 
 Both causes have co-operated in bringing about 
 the peculiar arrangement of the four sibilants, 
 Zay, Sin, Shin, and Ssad. 
 
 These two causes, similarity of form, and simi- 
 larity of value, which have effected such an 
 extensive re-arrangement of the Arabic letters, 
 are sufficient to account for the differences in 
 the order of the Greek letters and of the runes. 
 It will be observed that in the Arabic alphabet 
 ten only out of the twenty-two Syriac letters 
 have retained their places ; it will, therefore, be 
 
104 The Order of the Runes. 
 
 Thbacian Alphabet. Gothic Futhobo. 
 
 i. A 
 
 2. * r 
 
 3- A A 3 
 
 4- > V 4 
 
 5- £ * S 
 
 6. I fc 18 
 
 7- H < 3 a. 
 
 8. ® 
 
 9 I 
 
 io. In, X X io a. 
 
 ii. I" > 17 a. 
 
 12. M H 7 
 
 13- N + 13 
 
 14. I I 9 
 
 15. O, Y S, N 15 
 
 'V 7 a. 
 
 16. II K 16, 2 a. 
 
 17. ?, y r 17 
 
 18. fe 
 
 19. $ £ 19 
 
 20. 1 ^- 20 
 
 21. & 21,2 b. 
 
 M 7 b. 
 
 M 12 
 
 h u 
 
 M 8 
 
 £ 3 b. 
 
 22. ft * 22 
 
Dislocations in the Futhorc. 105 
 
 110 matter for surprise to find that in the case 
 of the Futhorc the same causes have produced 
 a somewhat similar amount of change. The table 
 on the opposite page shews that the Futhorc has 
 suffered even less dislocation than the Arabic 
 alphabet, thirteen out of the twenty-two Greek 
 letters having retained their places. The small 
 numerals, and the connections by dotted lines 
 will enable the reader easily to trace the corres- 
 pondencies. 
 
 If these changes of position, which it must 
 have taken several centuries to effect, are divided 
 into two or three hypothetical stages, it will 
 be more easily seen that they all follow naturally 
 from the two Principles to which the changes 
 in the order of the Arabic and other alphabets 
 are due. Subscript numerals are added in order 
 to facilitate the identification of the letters. 
 
io6 
 
 The Order of the Runes. 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 
 f« 
 
 
 J 
 
 r« 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -e- 
 
 CI 
 
 
 In 
 
 
 1 
 
 Lxx 
 
 rJ3 
 
 
 •e- 
 
 W 
 N 
 
 
 <- 
 
 o 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 00 
 
 
 i- 
 
 o 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ON 
 
 « 
 
 r^- 
 
 M 
 
 
 z_ 
 
 M 
 
 
 A: 
 
 On 
 00 
 
 
 lO- 
 
 nJ 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 ON 
 
 • 
 
 .z 
 
 
 
 O- 
 
 r-» 
 
 
 c 
 
 ^O 
 
 
 >- 
 
 r*. 
 
 
 pQ 
 
 
 c_ 
 
 VD 
 
 
 r> 
 
 cd 
 
 
 U 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 tO 
 
 ►O 
 53 
 
 O 
 
 *T\ 
 
 
 lo 
 
 z 
 
 rn 
 
 8 i 
 
 ^ 
 
 nJ 
 
 a 
 m 
 
 to 
 
 <- 
 
 o 
 
 ON 
 
 M 
 
 
 KH 
 
 ■^ 
 
 * <o 
 
 to 
 
 Z 
 
 
 to 
 
 S3 
 
 to 
 
 o 
 
 z 
 
 X 
 
 ON 
 
 £ 
 
 > 
 
 r>. 
 
 1— i 
 
 CD 
 CO 
 
 Z 
 
 Z 
 
 ® 
 
 N 
 O 
 
 M 
 
 on 
 
 00 
 
 O 
 
 1—5 
 i— t 
 
 9P 
 
 +^ 
 
 AC 
 
 ® 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 00 
 ON 
 
 CO 
 
 © 
 
 ti 
 
 i— i 
 i— i 
 
 M 
 
 03 
 
 «J 
 O 
 
 O 
 
 to 
 © 
 
 > 
 
 <D 
 bO 
 
 $ 
 CO 
 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
 ON 
 
 
 I 
 
 r-. 
 
 
 r- 
 
 
 
 rt 
 
 
 A. 
 
 r^ 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 «e> 
 
 
 
 .V 
 
 m 
 
 
 X 
 
 m 
 
 
 H 
 
 *C 
 
 
 .z 
 
 r- 
 
 
 a. 
 
 00 
 
 
 o 
 
 c3 
 
 
 LU 
 
 m 
 
 
 LU 
 
 u-» 
 
 
 El 
 
 CO 
 
 
 V 
 
 m 
 
 
 A 
 
 Tf 
 
 
 A 
 
 **• 
 
 
 LU 
 
 in 
 
 
 AC 
 
 CO 
 M 
 
 
 < 
 
 ro 
 
 
 W 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 tf 
 
 
 ^£- 
 
 »n 
 
 
 c& 
 
 « 
 
 • 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 W 
 
 
 
 -A. 
 
 -* 
 
 
 
 
 
 .< 
 
 m 
 
 
 < 
 
 trt 
 
 
 < 
 
 ro 
 
 
 < 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A4 
 
 N 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 CI 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 N 
 
Rearrangement of the Futhorc. 107 
 
 First set of changes. 
 
 Omission of superfluous letters — 1, 6, 14. 
 
 Development of gutturals and vowels — 3, 7, 
 10, 15, 17. 
 
 Collocation of similar forms — 18 and 10. (Cf. 
 the Mceso-Gothic forms ]<. and k.) 
 
 Result: Stage II. 
 
 Second set of changes. 
 
 Collocation of similar forms — 7 b and 22; 7 and 
 13 ; 11 and 20. 
 
 Collocation of similar sounds — 3 a and 10 ; 7 a, 
 9, and 15 a; 17 a and 10 a. 
 
 Development and replacement of labials — 
 2, 1 6, 21. 
 
 Result : Stage III. 
 
 Third set of changes. 
 
 Omission of superfluous letters — io, 15. 
 
 Differentiation i of similar forms — 7, 13, 7 b, 
 22, 12. 
 
 Simplification of forms — 5, 8, 17 a. 
 
 Collocation of similar forms — 3 b and 22 ; 12, 
 8 and 7 b. 
 
 Collocation of liquids — 11 and 12. 
 
 Result: Stage IV. 
 
io8 The Oghams. 
 
 § 18. The Oghams. 
 
 The Scandinavian settlers in Northumbria, 
 Cumbria, and the Isle of Man, having left 
 behind them so many runic records of their 
 presence, it may seem strange that not a single 
 runic stone should have been discovered in the 
 Scandinavian colony of Pembroke, or even in 
 Ireland, where Scandinavian chieftains bore sway 
 for many years in the cities of Dublin, Water- 
 ford, and Limerick. The runic treasures of 
 Wales and Ireland are limited to one small 
 silver coin, struck in Dublin, which bears a 
 runic legend 1 . But the fact of this remarkable 
 absence of runic monuments in certain regions 
 where they might have been looked for, must 
 be taken in conjunction with another circum- 
 stance, equally remarkable, tbat it is exactly in 
 those regions where the expected runic stones 
 are wanting that Ogham stones abound. These 
 facts will be explained if it can be established 
 that the mysterious Ogham character, in which 
 
 1 Worsaae, Banes and Norwegians, p. 338. 
 
Rep/aiemcnt of Runes by Oghams. 1 09 
 
 the most ancient records of Wales and Ireland 
 are written, and respecting which, so many wild 
 conjectures have been made, was originally 
 nothing more or less than a very simple and 
 obvious adaptation of the Futhorc to xylographic 
 necessities, the individual runes being expressed 
 by a convenient notation consisting of notches 
 cut with a knife on the edge of a squared staff, 
 instead of being cut with a chisel on the surface 
 of a stone. Some such method of notation seems 
 to be implied by the words book and buchstaben 
 (be€ch sticks), and may probably be referred to 
 in the often quoted lines of Yenantius Fortunatus, 
 a sixth century poet, who says, 
 
 Barbara fraxineis pingatur rhuna tabellis, 
 Quodque papyrus agit, virgnla plana valet. 
 
 The geographical distribution of the Ogham 
 inscriptions raises a strong presumption in favour 
 of the Scandinavian origin of the Ogham writing. 
 The Ogham districts of Wales and Ireland were, 
 without exception, regions of Scandinavian occu- 
 pancy. As I have elsewhere pointed out 1 , the 
 
 1 Words ami Places, fifth edition, pp. 117, 11S. 
 
no The Oghams. 
 
 existence of a very early Scandinavian settle- 
 ment in Pembrokeshire is indicated by a dense 
 cluster of local names of the Norse type which 
 surrounds, and radiates from, the fiords of Mil- 
 ford and Haverford. The Ogham district in 
 Wales is nearly conterminous with the limits 
 of this Scandinavian colony as determined by 
 the local names. Seventeen out of the twenty 
 Welsh Ogham inscriptions are in the counties of 
 Pembroke, Cardigan, Carmarthen, and Glamorgan, 
 nine out of the seventeen being in Pembrokeshire 
 itself. There are also two Ogham inscriptions in 
 Devon, and one in Cornwall, and there are said 
 to be one or two in Scotland 1 - But of the 
 extant Ogham inscriptions more than five-sixths 
 are in Ireland, and these, with four or five ex- 
 ceptions, are found along that part of the 
 Irish coast which lies opposite to the Scandin- 
 avian colony in Pembroke, and which, as is 
 attested by such local names as Waterford and 
 Smerwick, was frequented and settled by the 
 Northmen. No less than 148 out of the 155 
 
 1 Rhys, Lectures, pp. 288-303. 
 
Distribution of the Ogham Inscriptions. 1 1 r 
 
 Irish Oghams are found in the four counties 
 of Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork, and Kerry 1 , or, 
 roughly speaking, they fringe the line of coast 
 which stretches between the two Scandinavian 
 kingdoms of Waterford and Limerick. 
 
 It may safely be affirmed that where the 
 Northmen never came Ogham inscriptions are 
 never found. 
 
 Strong as is the presumption raised by the 
 external evidence, the internal evidence is still 
 more convincing. 
 
 The key to the Ogham writing is obtained 
 from the Book of Ballymote, a MS. of the 
 fourteenth century, which, in addition to sundry 
 Irish Alphabets and Scandinavian Futhorcs, con- 
 tains a transcript of a tract on Oghams. This 
 tract, from internal evidence, must have been 
 composed at some time between the years 704 
 and 909, and is assigned by Dr. Graves to the 
 early part of the ninth century 2 . That the 
 Ogham writing is at least as old as the eighth 
 century may therefore be taken as certain, but 
 
 1 Rhys, Lectwres, p. 376. 2 Hermathena, vol. ii. p. 449. 
 
1 1 2 The Oghams. 
 
 how niuch older the earliest inscriptions may be 
 is far more difficult to determine. The best 
 authorities, Dr. Graves, Mr. Whitley Stokes, and 
 Professor Ehys, consider that some of them can- 
 not be later than the fifth or sixth century. I 
 accept this very early date with some misgiving, 
 but without discussion, seeing that it depends 
 on the antiquity to be assigned to certain gram- 
 matical forms occurring in the inscriptions, a 
 matter as to which only a professed Keltic 
 scholar can be competent to pronounce an 
 opinion. 
 
 The Ogham characters in their primitive form 
 probably consisted of a system of notches on 
 the edge of a squared stick or stone. They 
 were afterwards written on a plane surface, on 
 either side of a central line. The name given 
 to this line, druim, shows that it represented 
 the ' ridge' of the primitive squared staff. 
 
 The arrangement of the Oghams, according 
 to the mediaeval Irish tradition, was in four 
 ' groups,' aicme, each group comprising five 
 Ogham characters. We have — 
 
The Ogham Alphabet. 113 
 
 Group I. -, — n — m — m — njyp 
 
 b 1 f s n 
 
 Group II. ' 11 hi mi i nn 
 
 h d t c q 
 
 Group in. i-ff-uf-m^m- 
 
 m g ng st r 
 
 Group IV. H H W HU H+H- 
 
 a o u e i 
 
 The merest glance at this Ogham alphabet 
 leads to the opinion that it did not originate 
 independently among an unlettered people, but 
 that it was an adaptation from some pre-existing 
 alphabet, and it is no less manifest what that 
 alphabet must have been. If it had been, as 
 has been supposed, an independently invented 
 cryptogram, we may be s\ire that the more com- 
 plex and troublesome symbols would not have 
 been employed to denote the most constantly 
 recurring sounds, nor, on the other hand, would 
 the easiest and simplest signs have been selected 
 to denote sounds which were hardly ever required 
 in practice. Now j_, the simplest of the Ogham 
 symbols, represents a sound that never occurs 
 in any of the inscriptions, and we know its 
 value only from tradition, whereas TTTTT, one of 
 the most troublesome and difficult of the symbols, 
 
 1 
 
H4 The Oghams. 
 
 denotes a letter which was in constant use. So 
 again -///- never occurs in the inscriptions, while 
 -fffft- is perpetually employed. 
 
 It will then be safe to conclude that the 
 Ogham alphabet was constructed according to 
 some rule of thumb out of some familiar existing 
 alphabet. What could this alphabet have been % 
 Geographical considerations, as we have already 
 seen, point to the Futhorc, the only reasonable 
 alternative being the Latin alphabet advocated 
 by Dr. Graves, as we may dismiss from considera- 
 tion the hypothesis of Captain R. F, Burton 
 that the Ogham descends, through the Arabic 
 Mushajjar, from the Nabathteo-Chaldeans of the 
 Plains of Shinar. 
 
 If then the choice lies, as it seems to do, 
 between the Latin alphabet and the Futhorc, 
 a strong presumption in favour of the latter is 
 afforded by the absence of an Ogham p (see 
 p. 75), and the still more significant fact of the 
 existence of the unnecessary and unused symbol 
 for in), a peculiarity with respect to which the 
 Ogham and the Futhorc stand alone among 
 European alphabets. 
 
Connection of t fie Oghams and the Runes. 115 
 
 But these presumptions, derived from internal 
 evidence, are raised to certainties by an exam- 
 ination of the Irish Bethluisnion alphabet, which 
 forms a connecting link between the Ogham 
 on the one hand and the Futhorc on the other. 
 In the Bethluisnion alphabet, so called, like the 
 Alphabet itself, from the names of the two 
 letters with which it commences, we find on the 
 one hand that the order of the letters is exactly 
 the same as the traditional order of the Oghams, 
 the Bethluisnion characters being arranged in 
 the same four groups, containing the same five 
 sounds in each group ; but on the other hand 
 we find that the names of the Bethluisnion 
 letters are, for the most part, obviously mere 
 Keltic adaptations of the names of the Scandin- 
 avian runes. It follows that the Bethluisnion 
 names must have been the names by which the 
 Ogham characters were designated before they 
 were superseded by the Irish adaptations of the 
 Boman uncials. But if the Oghams bore names 
 adapted from the names of the runes, there 
 seems to be no escape from the conclusion, to 
 which all other considerations also point, that 
 
 1 2 
 
n6 
 
 T/ie Oghams. 
 
 the Ogham alphabet was based upon the 
 Futhorc. 
 
 The Bethluisnion alphabet, in its mediaeval 
 form, is as follows : — 
 
 The Bethluisnion Alphabet. 
 
 Taluks. 
 
 Group I. b . 
 
 1 . 
 
 f 
 
 s . 
 
 n . 
 
 Group II. h . 
 
 d . 
 
 t . 
 
 c . 
 
 ? • 
 
 Group III. 
 
 m . 
 
 9 ■ 
 ng . 
 
 st 
 
 r . 
 
 Group IT. a 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 e 
 i 
 
 Names. 
 beith . 
 luis . . 
 fearn . 
 
 Meanings. 
 birch, 
 rowan, 
 alder. 
 
 sail sallow. 
 
 nion ash? 
 
 huath hawthorn ? 
 
 dnir oak. 
 
 tinne .... 1 
 
 coll hazel. 
 
 queirt .... apple. 
 
 muin vine? 
 
 gort ivy? 
 
 ngedal .... reed ? 
 
 straif sloe 1 
 
 ruis elder, (privet ?) 
 
 ailm fir? (palm?) 
 
 onn furze, (ash ?) 
 
 ur heath? 
 
 eadhadh 
 idhadh . 
 
 aspen 
 yew. 
 
 1 
 
 Dr. Graves has pointed out that some of 
 the Bethluisnion names, those which I have 
 
The Bethluisnion Alphabet. 117 
 
 distinguished by a note of interrogation, are 
 not true tree names in ancient Irish. It would 
 seem that meanings have been arbitrarily or 
 fancifully assigned to some of the names by 
 later grammarians in order to complete the 
 fanciful notion of the 'trees' in the 'Ogham 
 forest.' 
 
 Let us now compare these Bethluisnion or 
 Ogham names with the corresponding rune 
 names. We have — 
 
 Ogham Names. Eune Names. 
 
 b braut, boith b berith, brita. 
 
 I luir, luis I logr, laaz. 
 
 s suil, sail s sigil, sihil, ail, sol. 
 
 d duir, dair t tir, tyr. 
 
 m niuin m man. 
 
 r rait, ruis r rchit, rat. 
 
 q quoirt q querth. 
 
 9 gort g, q ger, quor. 
 
 ch, h sgeith, huath g, q gifu, quith. 
 
 c coll c calo. 
 
 t trom, tinne th, d thorn, dorn. 
 
 e egui, edad e hsec, ech, etli, eh. 
 
 i iechua, idad i hie, ih. 
 
 a ailra a arm. 
 
 u, oi, ur, oir, or w, 0, y ur, oyr, yr, 
 
 0, u, w,f onn, uinseann, fearn, ferus . w,f wen, fer. 
 
 mj ngedal ng, rag (odal). 
 
n8 The Oghams. 
 
 To the standard names, as given in the Book 
 of Ballymote, I have added from other sources 
 a few variants which seem to approximate to 
 the more ancient forms before they were made 
 significant as Irish words. I have also selected 
 for comparison several runic variants, taken chiefly 
 from the Scandinavian Futhorcs. 
 
 The comcidencies between the Ogham and 
 Runic names are too close and too numerous to 
 be accidental. That the Ogham names were 
 derived from the rune names, instead of the rune 
 names from the Ogham names, is proved, if 
 proof be thought needful, by the word ngedal, 
 the name of the Ogham character for ng. This 
 word seems to be meaningless in Irish, the 
 signification of ' reed ' being most probably 
 merely an attribution. Now in the Futhorcs 
 the ng rune, $, and the o rune, £, are called 
 respectively ing and odal, but their names and 
 powers are constantly confused and interchanged, 
 owing to the close resemblance of the forms, 
 and their juxtaposition at the end of the 
 Futhorc. It would seem that the word ngedal 
 was produced by some one who was doubtful 
 
Ogham names derived from Rune names, i ig 
 
 whether ing or odal was the true name of the 
 rune &, and who solved the difficulty by com- 
 pounding into one word the. two names which 
 he found attributed to the rune. 
 
 From the foregoing arguments we may con- 
 clude with some confidence that the Ogham 
 alphabet was, by some unknown process, con- 
 structed out of the Futhorc. In order to 
 discover what was the principle of construction 
 it will be needful to restore, as far as possible, 
 the primitive powers of the Ogham characters. 
 
 Three of the Oghams, - 1 -///-////-, do not occur 
 on any of the monuments 1 ; their values, h, 
 ng, st, being those assigned to them by tradi- 
 tion, as recorded in the book of Ballymote, and 
 confirmed by the evidence of the Bethluisnion 
 and Bobeloth alphabets. Professor Rhys has 
 shown that h, the traditional value of _l, arises 
 from the debilitation of a primitive guttural, 
 which he takes to have been ch. He also shows 
 that the value of -fjjf was originally not st but 
 
 1 I take this assertion from Professor Khys. It is possible 
 that the forthcoming work of Mr. Brash on the Ogham 
 Monuments may prove the statement to be incorrect. 
 
120 The Oghams. 
 
 z, and that this % must be a reduction of a 
 primitive s. He then proves that an Irish f 
 represents a Welsh v or w, and shows that 
 the Ogham TTT, which in Ireland has the value 
 of f, retains in the Welsh inscriptions its 
 primitive value of iv. He also considers that 
 the character ~r must originally have represented 
 / as well as b l . 
 
 In addition to these restorations of the primi- 
 tive values of the Oghams, which have been es- 
 tablished by Prof. Khys, we must expect to find 
 a Lautverschiebung .among the mutes and vowels. 
 That the Ogham d, for instance, answers to 
 a runic t, is proved by a comparison of their 
 names, duir and tir. But the precise amount 
 of this Lautverschiebung it will be more easy to 
 determine hereafter. 
 
 Taking then the primitive values of the Oghams 
 so far as they have been restored by Prof. Rhys, 
 we may replace the traditional values by the 
 following scheme, in which the later values are 
 distinguished by brackets. 
 
 1 Rhys, Lectwes on Welsh Philology, pp. 273-277, 286. 
 
Restoration of the Primitive Values. 121 
 
 Group I. -| — n — m — rm — rn-nr- 
 
 f(b) 1 w(f) a n 
 
 Group II. -J U_UI__UlI__JiUL 
 
 ch(h) d t c q 
 
 Group III. -t-H-Uh-M-Mh 
 
 m g ng B, z(rft; r 
 Group IV. H H HI HH HH+- 
 
 Now as Dr. Graves and Prof. Rhys have 
 observed, this arrangement is clearly not the 
 primitive order of the Oghams ; the classifica- 
 tion is based upon form, and the collocation 
 of the vowels in a group by themselves indicates 
 the revision of a grammarian. The constructor 
 of the Oghams would most certainly have be- 
 gun by employing the more simple and easily 
 written forms, and would only have resorted to 
 the more complex characters when the simpler 
 combinations were exhausted We may safely 
 assume that the primitive arrangement was in 
 five Classes, each containing four Oghams, instead 
 of in four Groups of five Oghams. This con- 
 clusion is supported by the Welsh tradition 
 that in the time of Beli the Great there were 
 only 1 6 ' awgryms,' that they were afterwards 
 
122 The C\/mws. 
 
 increased to 20, (the Irish number) and that 
 finally, in the time of Geraint Fardd Glas, the 
 number was raised to 24. 
 
 Resolving the four traditional Groups into 
 five Classes, we obtain as the primitive arrange- 
 ment — 
 
 Class 1. -j 1 /— — 
 
 f(b) ch(h) m a 
 
 Class 2. Li fl H- 
 
 1 d g o 
 
 Cl a ,s 3. -^-All—IH^^ 
 
 \v t ug u 
 
 Class 4. - .-- UiL^-fw. 
 &• z e 
 
 Class 5. T , ,i '"" / // // Milt 
 
 a q r i 
 
 If the Ogham mystery is to be cleared up 
 we must seek for some principle by means of 
 which the Futhorc can be rearranged in five 
 classes of four runes, so as to correspond with 
 the five classes of four Oghams. 
 
 The arbitrary and complicated rearrangements 
 of the Latin and Phoenician alphabets by means 
 of which Dr. Graves and Prof. Rhys endeavour 
 to evolve the order of the Ogmic characters are 
 
Restoration of tJie Primitive Arrangement. 123 
 
 so obviously inadmissible tbat some other principle 
 must be sought. 
 
 A child, on being shown such runes as P , Y, or 
 )K, will immediately pronounce them to be trees. 
 The Scandinavian and Keltic races, looking with 
 awe on the mysterious Runes and Oghams, seem 
 to have regarded them as representations of 
 trees, constituting a sort of alphabetic forest or 
 arboretum. In several cases the names of the 
 runes are actually names of trees ; beorc being 
 the birch, and thoni the thorn tree. In later 
 times this device of nomenclature was more 
 extensively employed, ac, the oak, and cesc, the 
 ash, being added to the runic trees. 
 
 This notion of the Northmen that the runes 
 were a sort of trees is exhibited in their ingenious 
 invention of the ' tree runes,' and it was carried 
 out in a still more elaborate method in the con- 
 struction of the forms and names of the Ogham 
 characters, which were invariably regarded and 
 spoken of as trees. The Book of Ballymote 
 speaks of the twigs and branches of the Ogham 
 tree, the individual characters are called ' trees,' 
 feada, the consonants are called 'side trees' too- 
 
124 The Oghams, 
 
 bomna, and each cross stroke is called a twig, 
 Jleasg 1 . A considerable proportion of the names 
 of the Ogham characters, such as sail, duir, coll, 
 idad, ceirt, ruis, ailm and onn, are true tree 
 names in ancient Irish ; in other cases, such as 
 muin, gort, and ngedal, tree significations seem to 
 have been assigned to words which were adopted 
 from the names of the Scandinavian runes. 
 
 The resemblance of the Oghams, in their 
 earliest forms, to trees was much more obvious 
 than it was afterwards. The Oghams, according 
 to the Book of Ballymote, were originally written, 
 not on horizontal lines, but on vertical stems, 
 thus n, t, g, e, were denoted by E> a » =fc> p' 
 symbols which in the later Ogham become 
 
 These primitive forms of the Ogham symbols 
 would seem to have been directly suggested 
 by the ' tree runes,' which are occasionally found 
 side by side with the ordinary runes, as at Eok 
 and Rotbrunna in Sweden, Maeshowe in Orkney, 
 and Hackness in Yorkshire 2 . The principle on 
 
 1 Graves, Hermathena, vol. ii. p. 457. 
 
 2 See Stephens, Runic Monuments, pp. 228-240, 467, 468. 
 
The Tree Runes. 125 
 
 which the tree runes were constructed is very 
 simple. The runes of the Futhorc were divided 
 into famiHes headed by certain letters, the common 
 division being, (1) Frey's family, containing the 
 runes from ftoh; (2) Hagl's family, from h to t ; 
 (3) Tyr's family, from t to the end. An upright 
 stem or tree trunk was then taken, and the 
 number of branches to the left denoted the 
 family, and the number to the right the station 
 in that family. Thus ^ as a tree rune would 
 represent u, the second rune in the first family 
 of the Futhorc \ 
 
 Although the notion of the Ogham trees was 
 in all probability suggested by the tree runes, 
 yet it is manifest that no modification of the 
 principle on which the tree runes were constructed 
 will suffice to explain the Oghams. We must 
 therefore seek for some other device, which, like 
 
 1 The same principle was applied by the Arabs, after they 
 had come in contact with the Varangians in the ninth century, 
 to the construction, out of the Arabic alphabet, of the very 
 simple cryptograms called El Mushajjar and HI Shajari, the 
 'branched' or 'tree shaped,' of which much needless mystery 
 has been made. 
 
126 The Oghams. 
 
 the key to the tree runes, ought to be simple, 
 arbitrary, and easy to remember. 
 
 Now if we bear in mind that both the Eunes 
 and the Oghams were regarded as constituting 
 a mysterious alphabetic forest in which grew 
 trees of twenty Species, what would be the 
 most obvious and easily remembered principle 
 by which the runic trees could be arranged in 
 five Genera, so as to correspond with that division 
 of the Ogham trees into the five classes of four 
 Oghams, which a system of notation by notches 
 made imperative ? 
 
 In such a case the principle most likely to 
 be adopted by an uncultured people would, I 
 think, be to arrange the trees of the runic ar- 
 boretum according to a sort of rough botanical 
 classification, putting together in the same class 
 those runes which most resembled each other in 
 shape and general appearance. Now if any one, 
 unacquainted with the Oghams, will try the ex- 
 periment of taking the Futhorc and endeavouring 
 to class the runes according to their shapes, con- 
 sidered as imaginary trees, he will find that they 
 naturally resolve themselves into five classes, 
 
Plan on which Oghams were constructed. 127 
 
 which correspond, with singular exactitude, to 
 the five classes in which the primitive Oghams 
 were arranged. 
 
 The inventor of the Oghams, proceeding on 
 this principle, would naturally begin with the 
 first rune in the Futhorc. His first class would 
 comprise those branched runes with markedly 
 tree like forms, such as Y and £, which bear 
 a general resemblance to V ', the first rune in 
 the Futhorc. *" The four runes of this type would 
 be expressed by the first or simplest class of 
 Oghams, those with one twig, (jleasg) such as 
 
 From the second rune, A, he would obtain a 
 type for his second class, which would consist 
 of the runes with a single fork or elbow, such 
 as h, 1, and <. These would be denoted by 
 Oghams with two twigs, =|, L, cj^, ^. 
 
 The third rune, £•, gives a conspicuous and 
 well-marked type for the third class of runes. 
 These would be the closed or looped forms, 
 and might be conceived to represent either 
 hollow trunks, or trees with interlacing boughs. 
 Such runes as (>, P>, £, %, would therefore 
 
128 The Oghams. 
 
 be represented by Oghams with three twigs, 
 
 The fourth rune having already found an 
 appropriate place in the first class he would go 
 on to the fifth rune, R or k, which would 
 supply a type for a well-marked fifth class, con- 
 taining trees with diverging roots, such as K and 
 ,4^ Either because the fifth rune supplied the 
 type, or because the root is the last and lowest 
 characteristic feature of a tree, these root runes 
 would naturally be represented by the fifth class 
 
 of Oghams, those with five twigs, = t E ? fj^ ±, 
 
 The most striking rune forms being now ex- 
 hausted, the four remaining runes would form a 
 sort of residuum, to be thrown together into the 
 remaining class. They bear a general resemblance 
 to trees with crooked stems, such as, $, %, V[, 
 and would be represented by Oghams of the 
 fourth class, those with four twigs. 
 
 Thus the characteristics of the five classes of 
 the rune trees would be (i) branches; (2) forks; 
 (3) loops ; (4) crooks ; (5) roots ; a classification 
 beginning with the branches at the top, and 
 
The Five Classes of Rune Trees. 129 
 
 thence proceeding regularly downwards, and end- 
 ing with the roots. That this scheme is fanciful 
 is no objection to it, but rather an argument in 
 its favour when we remember the fancifulness 
 of the whole system of the Oghams and their 
 names. 
 
 This theory as to the ideas which may have 
 passed through the mind of the contriver of the 
 Oghams must now be tested by ascertaining 
 whether it will suffice to explain the actual 
 facts. 
 
 The five classes of Oghams would correspond 
 as follows to the five classes of runes : — 
 
 First Class. 
 
 Type. The first rune, Y- 
 
 Substitution. One -twig Oghams for Branch 
 Eunes. 
 
 Oghams. — ] i / 1— 
 
 f, b ch, h m a 
 
 Runes. Y JKTf M f Y fc 
 
 f, b g, k, h m a 
 
 K 
 
130 The Oghams. 
 
 Second Class. 
 Type. The second rune, A. 
 Substitution. Two -twig Oghams for Fork 
 
 Eunes. 
 
 Oghams. 
 
 "II""" 
 1 
 
 11 
 
 d 
 
 -H— 
 
 H- 
 
 
 
 Runes. 
 
 1 
 
 t 1 
 
 t 
 
 < 
 
 c 
 
 A 
 
 u 
 
 Third Class. 
 
 Type. The third rune, (>. 
 
 Substitution. Three -twig Oghams for Loop 
 Eunes. 
 
 Oghams. -^ w ^ ^_ 
 
 w t ng u 
 
 Eunes. P" l> £ £ $ 
 
 w th ng o, y 
 
 Fourth Class. 
 Type. The Eesiduum. 
 
 Substitution. Four-twig Oghams for Crook 
 Eunes. 
 
 Oghams. - m uu ^ |W _ 
 
 s, z, st 
 
 Eunes. i l/j X t] Z H *V U| 
 
 S g S, Z, St i, y 
 
Identification of Runes and Oghams. 131 
 
 Fifth Class. 
 Type. The fifth rune, ft. 
 Substitution. Five -twig Oghams for Root 
 Runes. 
 
 Oghams. - im ^ fftff hw — 
 
 n q r i 
 
 Runes. +K Ak * R ft H/K 
 
 n k, q r c , y 
 
 In the foregoing scheme alternative forms of 
 the runes have been given in some instances. 
 This has been done on account of the uncer- 
 tainty as to the date at which the Ogham 
 alphabet was invented. Thus if the earliest 
 Oghams must be dated not later than the fifth 
 century, as Professor Rhys contends, the runes Y 
 and A will represent Ogham gutturals, whereas if 
 it should prove possible to place the invention of 
 the Oghams as late as the eighth century these 
 runes might represent m and y. Similarly the 
 rune K might be either h or n, and Uf either y 
 or s according to the date. Similar considerations 
 affect the whole of the runes which have been 
 placed in the fourth class. 
 
 The phonetic differences between the powers 
 k 2 
 
132 The Oghams. 
 
 of the Oghams and of the corresponding runes 
 do not present any insuperable difficulties. The 
 equivalence of the Welsh broga and the Teutonic 
 frog, and the uniform use of the / rune, P, to 
 denote b on the Keltic soil of the Isle of Man 
 explain the representation of the f (b) rune 
 by the b (f) Ogham. Also the names duir and 
 tir show that the Ogham d represented a runic 
 t. This is in accordance with phonetic law, a 
 primitive t being normally debilitated in Welsh 
 into d 1 . The runic ih might then by Cross 
 Compensation take the power of t. In like 
 manner a Welsh g represents a primitive c 2 , and 
 a primitive g might then become c by pro- 
 vection. Thus the changes among the Mutes, far 
 from offering any difficulty, supply a convincing 
 confirmation of our hypothesis as to the mode 
 in which the Oghams were derived from the 
 Runes. We are brought, by an independent 
 method, to the exact Law of the Lautverschiebung 
 between Old Welsh and Gothic, according to which 
 O.W. d corresponds to G. t, OW. t to G. ih, O.W. g 
 
 1 Rhys, Lectures on Welsh Philology, Lecture II. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
The Oghams Invented in Wales. 133 
 
 to G. k (c), and O.W. c to G. g or h 1 . Nor can the 
 interchange between the two throat vowels and 
 u, and the two lip vowels e and i, be deemed 
 a matter of importance when we remember the 
 vague uncertainty with which the vowel sounds 
 are denoted in runic inscriptions 2 . 
 
 On phonetic grounds it would seem probable 
 that the Oghams originated in the Scandinavian 
 colony of Pembrokeshire, and were thence carried 
 across to the opposite Irish coast. The chief 
 reasons for this belief are as follows. The Ogham 
 symbol TTT, which stands for f in Ireland, has 
 retained its original power of v or w in the 
 Welsh inscriptions. Now this change of w or v 
 to / is peculiar to the Erse language, and does 
 not take place in Welsh 3 . Hence if the Oghams 
 had originated in Ireland, and had thence passed 
 over to Wales, this Ogham would have had the 
 power of f or b, instead of w, in the Welsh 
 inscriptions. 
 
 1 Rhys, Lectures, p. 17. 
 
 2 In runic inscriptions found in the single province of Upland 
 (Sweden) the vowel sound in the word sten (stone) is expressed 
 in no less than twelve different ways, e, a, i, o, u, ei, ia, ai, au, 
 ae, a, oi. 3 Rhys> Lectures, p. 280. 
 
134 Tfie Oghams. 
 
 On these grounds we may conclude that the 
 Pembrokeshire colony was earlier in date than 
 the settlements on the opposite Irish coasts ; or, 
 at all events, that the Oghams must have been 
 employed in Wales for some considerable period 
 before they were introduced into Ireland. 
 
 But here we are confronted with some import- 
 ant and startling considerations touching the 
 date of the earliest Teutonic settlements in 
 Wales and Ireland. On grammatical grounds 
 Mr. Stokes and Professor Ehys have been driven 
 to the conclusion that the invention of the Ogham 
 writing must be placed 'before the fifth century.' 
 An equally early date is indicated by the older 
 Ogham inscriptions being written from right to 
 left, a fact which would lead us to infer that 
 the Oobams were derived from the runes at a 
 time when the direction of the runic writing 
 was still retrograde. 
 
 It would therefore appear that Scandinavian 
 immigrants must have established themselves in 
 Wales and Ireland several centuries before the 
 commencement of the inroads of the vikings. 
 The harrying of the Irish coasts did not begin 
 
Probable Date of the Oghams. 135 
 
 till nearly the end of the eighth century, and the 
 rule of the Ost-men Kings in Ireland dates only 
 from the middle of the ninth. It is manifest that 
 a knowledge of the Ogham, a character derived 
 from the runes, could not have been acquired by 
 the Irish and Welsh Kelts from mere bands of 
 plundering marauders, but must have been ob- 
 tained from established settlers on their shores, 
 with whom peaceable intercourse had been set 
 up. Moreover the tract on Oghams, contained 
 in the book of Ballymote, appears to have been 
 written about the year 800, at which time the 
 Ogham writing must have been already of con- 
 siderable antiquity, as the tract contains internal 
 evidence that the compiler was using older 
 materials, some of which he only partially under- 
 stood \ 
 
 From these considerations it is probable that 
 the introduction of the Oghams into Ireland, and 
 their anterior invention in the Pembrokeshire 
 colony, must be earlier than the end of the eighth 
 century when the inroads of the vikings first began. 
 
 1 Graves, Hermathena, vol. ii. p. 450. 
 
136 The Oghams. 
 
 We are thus brought to the conclusion that the 
 legends as to an earlier Scandinavian colonization 
 in Wales and Ireland, as to which no trust- 
 worthy historical record has come down to us, 
 may contain a basis of truth. The ancient 
 annals and traditions of Ireland make a clear 
 distinction between the historical Danish ma- 
 rauders of the ninth century, who are called 
 Dubhgalls, the 'Black Strangers, 5 and the earlier 
 invaders called the Tuatha De Danann, whose 
 arrival is placed far away in the dim period of 
 Irish legend. It seems probable that these 
 Tuatha De Danann were also Danes, belonging 
 to a much earlier immigration, and from them, 
 I would venture to suggest, the Oghams may 
 have been obtained. Indeed it is categorically 
 asserted in the Ogham tract in the book of 
 Ballymote that this was the case. 
 
 If a further conjecture may be ventured I 
 should be inclined to identify the Tuatha De 
 Danann with the Jutes from Jutland, whose 
 settlement in Kent and the Isle of Wight is 
 the earliest Teutonic migration into Britain which 
 can be called historical. 
 
The Tuatha de Danann. 137 
 
 In favour of this conjecture it may be urged 
 that the Saxons, like the kindred confederations 
 of Franks and Lombards, seem to have been 
 unacquainted with the runes, as thus only can 
 we account for the entire absence of runic stones 
 from the Saxon parts of England. Kunic in- 
 scriptions have been found in no inconsiderable 
 numbers in Yorkshire, Durham, Northumber- 
 land, and Cumberland, but not one in Wessex, 
 Sussex, Essex, Mercia, or even in East Anglia. 
 The only Southumbrian region which can boast 
 of any runic inscriptions is that part of Kent 
 which was settled by the Jutes. The most 
 ancient of all the runic stones in the British 
 Isles is one found at Sandwich, which is assigned 
 to the fifth century. One of the graves in the 
 great burying place at Gilton, near Sandwich, 
 contained a sword, whose silver hilt was inscribed 
 with runes of an equally early date. At Dover 
 also there is a runic stone of the early Christian 
 period 1 . 
 
 Hence it would appear that the Jutes were 
 
 1 Stephens, Runic Monuments, pp. 363, 370, 465. 
 L 
 
138 The Osrhatns, 
 
 the only tribe belonging to the first swarm of 
 the Teutonic immigration into Britain who were 
 acquainted with the runes, an inference which 
 agrees with the abundance of runic monuments 
 of the oldest type in Jutland, and their remark- 
 able absence from the Fatherland of the Saxons 
 and the Angles. 
 
 There seems to be no valid reason to prevent 
 us from supposing that the Jutish adventurers 
 of the fourth century may have crept on, from 
 Kent and the Isle of Wight, along the southern 
 coast of England as far as the fiords of Pembroke- 
 shire, and from thence have crossed over to the 
 sheltered havens of Minister. The local names, 
 which afford the chief evidence as to the existence 
 of a Scandinavian colony in Pembroke, are cer- 
 tainly not opposed to this view. In the Ogham 
 region of South Wales we find such local names 
 as Helwick, Oxwich, Ramsey, and Gateholm ; in 
 the Ogham region of Ireland we have Helvick 
 and Smerwick ; and in the runic region of 
 Southumbrian England we find Sandwich, Rams- 
 gate and Eomney. If then it be allowable to 
 conjecture that in the fourth or fifth century the 
 
The "Jutes. 139 
 
 Jutes may have established settlements in Wales 
 and Ireland, as well as in Kent and the Isle of 
 Wight, the remaining difficulties as to the date 
 and origin of the Ogham writing will disappear. 
 In no other way can the apparently conflict mg 
 conclusions of Palaeography, Philology, and History 
 so easilv be reconciled.