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NOTES AND QUERIES.

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that of all the German conquests this proved the most thorough and complete. So far as the English sword in these earlier days reached, Britain became England a land, that is, not of Britons, but of Englishmen."

3. "What connexion has Patrick with lona?" asks SIR HENRY further. That, I venture to submit, existing between grandsire and grandchild. lona was of Columba, and Columba of Patrick. "The Columban Church," writes Skene ('Celtic Scotland,' p. 93), "must be viewed as in reality a mission from the Irish Church, and as forming an integral part of that Church, of which it was an offshoot This Northum- brian Church was an exact counterpart of the monastic church of which lona was the head " (Bede, ' Hist, Eccl.,' lib. iv. c. 3).

4. Again, SIR HENRY asks for "a single shred of evidence" that the Goidels, as I stated, clustered round Morecambe Bay from the earliest times. Prof. Rhys was my authority (' Celtic Britain,' pp. 230-42) :

"About the time of the coming of the Romans, a non-Brythonic people still possessed the shores of the Solway so far south as the river Derwent. Nay, possibly most of the lake district down to More- cambe Bay and Kendal, or still further south, was peopled by a mixed race of Goidels and non-Celtic

aborigines Later, when the Selgovse had been

disposed of, the remains of the Goidelic people on the Solway were enclosed by a rampart from the end of that firth to Loch Ryan. It is in their country the Irish invaders probably organized their expeditions southwards all the time they continued to come over."

5. As to the suggested likeness between the Manx Treen and Columban chapels, Canon Bonney ('Cathedrals, &c., of England,' iv. 484) writes :

" The ruined chapel of Heysham on the wind- swept headland reminds me of those cells for they are little more which are still dotted about the shores of Britain, especially in the north, such, for nstance, as that at Peel Castle in the Isle of Man."

''There is only one at Peel," the Rev. J. Quine, vicar of Lonan and a noted local antiquary, informs me, " of the kind referred to but many throughout the island, and a very good one at Maughold." Lonan old church also much resembles the Heysham ruin both in shape and material, being of rubble and 18 ft. by 54 ft. in measurement.

6. Touching the suggested Columban origin of the Manx Church, Mr. Quine has very kindly furnished me with copious notes, from which I gather that the prevalence of Columban names, which could only have been either imported by Columban mission- aries or perpetuated by those whose traditions were derived from the Columban Church, goes far to support the theory. Thus the

church of Arbory was dedicated to St. Columba; Rushen Abbey (Ballasalla = Bally St. Lua) to St. Lua, a member of the family of lona; Maronn Church (Ma-ronan=St. Ronan) to St. Ronan, a Columban whose name survives at Port Ronan, in lona, and in Teampull Ronaig, the parish church of lona ; Lonan (Kil-onan = St. Adamnan) to St. Adamnan, ninth Abbot of lona and bio- grapher of Columba. "With the exception of Kirk Christ Rushen," adds Mr. Quine, "all the principal old dedications of the east side of Man point to Columban times."

7. A last word as to the rock-hewn coffins. I claim no finality for my theory, but the simple right to hold it in peace. Neither mine nor any other can ever be raised on a more stable basis than conjecture. Canon Bonney says (ut supra) :

" Nothing is known of the history of these curious places of sepulture. Rock-cut graves are common enough in some countries, but as a rule they are either connected with sepulchral chambers or are much more deeply sunk into the rock ; these are practically stone coffins, of which the lower part has not been detached from the parent rock. I know of no other instance of such places of sepul- ture in England."

Here closes, so far as I am concerned, what has been to me, at least, an interesting dis- cussion, leaving SIR HENRY HOWORTH and myself, I trust, amicably agreeing to differ. One step further alone remains in deference to his suggestion and that of others. J. B. S. is herewith interred in the last twenty-nine volumes of ' N. & Q.,' and, casting his cerecloths, begs henceforth to subscribe himself J. B. McGovERN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-ori-M., Manchester.

AGAM COLOURS (9 th S. iii. 68). Would MR. FOSTER kindly give an exact reference to the passages where this word occurs? It may put one of your readers in a position to help him ; and (in any case) will be valuable when the supplement to the ' Hist. English Diction- ary ' is prepared. ROBT. J. WHITWELL.

This may be a clue to the meaning of agam :

11 Agami, in ornithology, a name applied to the gold-breasted trumpeter of Latham, the specific character of which is, that its head and breast are smooth, green, and shining. The bird is about twenty-two inches long."

So that these kerseys may have been wanted of a green, gold, or yellow colour.

ALFD. J. KING.

101, Sandmere Road, Clapham, S.W.

In Craven's 'Hindustani Dictionary' is "Agam, n., futurity. Agam, a., impassable,