When and how a knowledge of letters reached this island we know
not. From the analogy of Gaul, we may conclude that they were
known for some time prior to their use by the bards. Caesar tells
us that the Gaulish bards and druids did not employ letters for the
preservation of their lore, but trusted to memory, assisted,
doubtless, as in this country, by the mechanical and musical aid of
verse. Whether the Ogham was a native alphabet or a derivative
from another, it was at first employed only to a limited extent.
Its chief use was to preserve the name of buried kings and heroes
in the stone that was set above their tombs. It was, perhaps,
invented, and certainly became fashionable on this account,
straight strokes being more easily cut in stone than rounded or
uncial characters. For the same reason it was generally employed by
those who inscribed timber tablets, which formed the primitive
book, ere they discovered or learned how to use pen, ink, and
parchment. The use of Ogham was partially practised in the
Christian period for sepultural purposes, being venerable and
sacred from time. Hence the discovery of Ogham-inscribed stones in
Christian cemeteries. On the other hand, the fact that the majority
of these stones are discovered in raths and forts, i.e., the tombs
of our Pagan ancestors, corroborates the fact implied in all the
bardic literature, that the characters employed in the ethnic times
were Oghamic, and affords another proof of the close conservative
spirit of the bards in their transcription, compilation, or
reformation of the old epics.
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