Byrhtferth – OG(H)AM

‘Byrhtferth’s Ogam Signature’ and Oxford, St John’s College MS 17

By Deborah Hayden, OG(H)AM’s Co-Investigator As we move into a new year, it seems fitting that this January’s OG(H)AM project blog should be devoted to a manuscript source concerned with calendrical matters. The image below is of a page in Oxford, St John’s College MS 17, an early-twelfth-century collection of texts, tables, maps and diagrams… Continue reading ‘Byrhtferth’s Ogam Signature’ and Oxford, St John’s College MS 17

The Poltalloch ogham stone is a fragment broken off a larger original. Its first four letters are clearly cut, with long tapering consonant strokes and the O as short vowel notches, followed by at least two partially damaged letters. There does appear to be evidence for a letter preceding the C, but it looks as though this may have been removed purposefully. The inscription likely reads: CRON[A]N?; Crónán is a Gaelic male personal name meaning ‘reddish-brown’.

The stone fragment was first discovered in 1931 in Kilmartin, Argyll, near the site of Bruach An Druimein, formerly known as Kill y Kiaran or Kilchiarain (‘church of St Ciarán’). The site had been excavated in 1928, which had revealed four cists aligned roughly east-west and containing inhumations. Upon revisiting the site in 1931, J H Craw found the ogham stone close to where these graves had been excavated, leading him to conclude that ‘there can be little doubt that it has been broken at some recent time from a slab of one of the graves (Craw 1932, 448).’