notions of the medieval Irish concerning the origin
of their language. The St Gall glosses on Priscian contain Irish terms
for all the nomenclature of the Latin grammarians, and show how
extensive was the use made of Irish even in this department of learning.

Prosody.

Thurneysen had edited from BB., Laud 610 and a TCD. MS. three treatises
on metric which give an account of the countless metres practised by the
_filid_. It is impossible for us here to enter into the question of
Irish prosody in any great detail. We have seen that there is some
reason for believing that the primitive form of Irish verse was a kind
of rhythmical alliterative prose as contained in the oldest versions of
the sagas. The _filid_ early became acquainted with the metres of the
Latin church hymns, whence rhyme was introduced into Ireland. (This is
the view of Thurneysen and Windisch. Others like Zeuss have maintained
that rhyme was an invention of the Irish.) In any case the _filid_
evolved an intricate system of rhymes for which it is difficult to find
a parallel. The medieval metres are called by the general name of _Dan
Direch_, "Direct Metre." Some of the more general principles were as
follows. The verses are grouped in stanzas of four lines, each stanza
being complete in itself. Each line must contain a fixed number of
syllables, whilst the different metres vary as to the employment of
internal and end rhyme, assonance and alliteration. The Irish elaborated
a peculiar system of consonantal correspondence which counted as rhyme.
The consonants were divided with a considerable degree of phonetic
accuracy into six groups, so that a voiceless stop (c) rhymes with
another voiceless stop (t, p), a voiced stop (b) with another voiced
stop (d, g), and so forth. The commonest form of verse is the four-line
stanza of seven syllables. Such a verse with rhymes _abab_ and
monosyllabic or dissyllabic finals belongs to the class _rannaigecht_. A
similar stanza with _aabb_ rhymes is the basis of the so-called _debide_
(cut in two) metres. A peculiarity of the latter is that the rhyming
word ending the second line must contain at least one syllable more than
the rhyming word which ends the first. Another frequently employed metre
is the _rindard_, consisting of lines of six syllables with dissyllabic
endings. In the metrical treatises examples are given of some 200 odd
metres. The result of the complicated technique evolved in Ireland was
an inclina