Ogam Inscriptions in Ireland, Scotland, and ... - House of Dubhros

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 17would be assured that our labour shall not be lost in thepursuit of phantoms, where the mistake of a digit or a notchmay have altered the whole basis of our reasoning, and turnedwhat ought to be fruitful investigation into mere illusion andreverie.24. Such reproductions can be attained without the labourof transporting heavy masses of plaster of Paris, by means ofPaper casts. This kind of cast has the advantage that it can Paper casts.be conveniently held in the hand and presented to the lightin varying degrees of incidence an important means ofgetting at the traces of worn inscriptions of all kinds. ThePaper cast has the further advantage of pliability, so that aninscription extending to two surfaces which could not be seenon one plane reflected from a solid model, can easily beexposed on the flat to the photographer's lens. I have,therefore, from time to time procured Paper casts of most ofthe Oghams I shall refer to.25. True texts being secured, the next requisite towardsgetting at the meaning is a right transliteration. There Transliterationbeing no word-divisions, save in a few exceptional cases, theverbatim, if I may so say, depends in a large degree on theknowledge and sagacity of the reader. I can here no longerspeak with the same confidence. In what I shall proposein the way of reducing transliterations to words, and ingiving to these words their English equivalents, I by nomeans claim for myself the same degree of certainty as in liable to errors,the assignment of the continuous values. If, hereafter, laws,grammatical or constructional, should appear to be legitimatelydeduced and the probability of a large addition tothe present material gives reasonable hope that such lawsmav yet be established, a tone of authority may becomejustifiable but at; present the study is exploratory ratherthan demonstrative ;and he who speaks with most modestyis the more likely to obtain an intelligent hearing from menof judgment.26. The main questions agitated are : Whether the Ogham Questionsis of Pagan or Christian origin ; Whether, if of Pagan origin, anyof the monuments are Christian ;Whether the Welsh impartedit to the Irish, or vice versa ; and, Whether its forms belongcdettlt Wllil -