It is to the Family of Iona we are also indebted for the first literary products to which we can refer. They were the first to love and cultivate the literature which we now so highly prize. If there were any such pre-Christian bards as Ossian, it is to the ancient clerics that we are indebted for the preservation of their compositions. Indeed it is a question whether the knowledge of the forms of poetry existed at all in pre-Christian times. There is no evidence that we possess a scrap of ancient poetry which belongs to ages before Christian pens began to cultivate letters. The brethren in Iona were much engaged in writing, which as an accomplishment was considered as an adornment even for the highest Church dignitaries. And great value was attached evidently to the products of their pens. The transcription of sacred literature, particularly of the Psalter, occupied much of their time. Columba himself was engaged in this work when death took him. To be a ready _scribhnidh_, or scribe, was an object of worthy ambition. The position of _ferleighin_, or praelector, was one of honour in the sacred brotherhood. Many of the terms used by them in connection with letters have come down to us; others have been lost, or have since their time received different meanings and applications. Columba’s Stylus, or pen, was called in Gaelic _graib_, from the Greek _graphium_; but the _graib_ of modern times is an agricultural implement. A very poetic legend tells how this stylus of Columba became the property of Gregory of Rome. The leather cases in which the service books were kept for travelling were called _polire_ and _tiagha_. The alphabet they styled _abgiter_ a form which has considerable philologic value; according to one authority Columba’s _abgiter_ was written on a cake. These waxed tablets for writing introduced _ceir_ from the Latin cera. The library was _teach screaptra_; and its keeper _leabhor coimhedach_. These and many other terms once current in Gaelic literature, introduced by the Gaelic clerics in the British Isles and on the Continent, ceased to be used in the centuries of greater ignorance which succeeded their times.