Mider, also the hero of legends, would seem to have been a god of the underworld, a Gaelic Pluto. As such, he was connected with the Isle of Falga—a name for what was otherwise, and still is, called the Isle of Man—where he had a stronghold in which he kept three wonderful cows and a magic cauldron. He was also the owner of the “Three Cranes of Denial and Churlishness”, which might be described flippantly as personified “gentle hints”. They stood beside his door, and when anyone approached to ask for hospitality, the first one said: “Do not come! do not come!” and the second added: “Get away! get away!” while the third chimed in with: “Go past the house! go past the house!”[80] These three birds were, however, stolen from Mider by Aitherne, an avaricious poet, to whom they would seem to have been more appropriate than to their owner, who does not otherwise appear as a churlish and illiberal deity.[81] On the contrary, he is represented as the victim of others, who plundered him freely. The god Angus took away his wife Etain,[82] while his cows, his cauldron, and his beautiful daughter Blathnat were carried off as spoil by the heroes or demi-gods who surrounded King Conchobar in the golden age of Ulster. Ogma, who appears to have been also called Cermait, that is, the “honey-mouthed”, was the god of literature and eloquence. He married Etan, the daughter of Diancecht, the god of medicine, and had several children, who play parts more or less prominent in the mythology of the Gaelic Celts. One of them was called Tuirenn, whose three sons murdered the father of the sun-god, and were compelled, as expiation, to pay the greatest fine ever heard of—nothing less than the chief treasures of the world.[83] Another son, Cairpré, became the professional bard of the Tuatha Dé Danann, while three others reigned for a short time over the divine race. As patron of literature, Ogma was naturally credited with having been the inventor of the famous _Ogam_ alphabet. This was an indigenous script of Ireland, which spread afterwards to Great Britain, inscriptions in ogmic characters having been found in Scotland, the Isle of Man, South Wales, Devonshire, and at Silchester in Hampshire, the Roman city of Calleva Attrebatum. It was originally intended for inscriptions upon upright pillar-stones or upon wands, the equivalents for letters being notches cut across, or strokes made upon one of the faces of the angle, the alphabet running as follows: [Illustration] When afterwards written in manuscript, the strokes were placed over, under, or through a horizontal line, in the manner above; and the vowels were represented by short lines instead of notches, as: [Illustration] A good example of an ogmic inscription is given in Professor Rhys’s _Hibbert Lectures_. It comes from a pillar on a small promontory near Dunmore Head, in the west of Kerry, and, read horizontally, reads: [Illustration: ERC, THE SON OF THE SON OF ERCA (DESCENDANT OF) MODOVINIA.[84]]