It is to the insular Gaels, to those of Ireland and Scotland in the fifth and sixth centuries of our era, that we have to look for the early beginnings of Celtic literature. The Irish first showed signs of a rude awakening to activity in this direction. They invented a system of writing peculiar to themselves, simple and ingenious, and good enough for rough inscriptions on stones, but too cumbrous for the needs of literature. Their earliest records are to be found in this Ogam script, which consists of a number of short lines drawn straight or slanting, either above, below, or through a long stem-line. Thus— | || ||| |||| ||||| +-----++-----+++-----++++-----+++++---------- h d t c qu represents the letters h, d, t, c, qu, being the first letters of the first five numerals in Gaelic, h’aon, dha, tri, ceithir, coig; the last in Manx is queig; in Irish cuig; and in Latin quinque. The vowels are similarly represented, broad vowels, a, o, u; small vowels, e, i— | || ||| |||| ||||| +-----++-----+++-----++++-----+++++---------- | || ||| |||| ||||| a o u e i Over two hundred stones have been found inscribed with Ogam writing, most of them in the south-west of Ireland, from twenty to thirty in Wales and Devonshire, and ten in Scotland. The Book of Ballymote, a MS. of the fourteenth century, fortunately contains a key to some of these inscriptions, so that many of them have been read, though not all. Who introduced this peculiar mode of writing? and when? are questions that have never yet been determined. Brash, who made personal inspection of most of the stones, was of opinion that they are of pre-Christian origin, whereas Dr. Graves has attempted to prove that they belong to a period between the fifth and seventh centuries A.D. References to Ogam inscriptions are frequently met with in the earliest Celtic literature, and some examined contain grammatical forms alleged to be older than those of the most ancient MSS., and corresponding even with the archaic forms of the antique Gaulish monuments. The Ogam used to be written on wood and stone, and it is not improbable that many of the genealogies and bits of legendary lore may have been handed down from generation to generation in this way, as well as by oral tradition.