Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/284

268 knowledge came to be themselves called ogyrvens, which applied, among other things, to the letters of the alphabet, as will be seen from the following extract from a manuscript supposed to date from the end of the fifteenth century: "The three elements of a letter are $$\scriptstyle{\diagup\ \mid\ \diagdown}$$, since it is of the presence of one or other of the three a letter consists; they are three beams of light, and it is of them are formed the sixteen ogyrvens, that is, the sixteen letters. There belong also to another art seven [score] and seven ogyrvens, which are no other than the symbols of the rank of the seven score and seven words in the parentage of the Welsh language, and it is from them all other words are derived." As to the $$\scriptstyle{\diagup\ \mid\ \diagdown}$$, they form the component parts of such letters as those of the Ogam, the Welsh bardic letters, and the Runic alphabets, which were made up of straight lines fitted for cutting on slips of wood; but more obscurity surrounds the seven score and seven ogyrvens alluded to; they were probably not very definitely fixed in point of number, and they are doubtless to be identified with the exactly seven score ogyrvens said to be in awen, 'poesy or muse.' This statement, in a context connecting the ogyrvens with Hades, occurs in another Taliessin poem, which, while obscure throughout and relating in part probably to alchemy, bears the curious title of Angar Kyfyndawt, or Steam of Combination, and contains a reference to cauldrons made to boil without the aid of fire. Treated as a personality, Ogyrven appears as the father of poetry: thus Kynᵭelw, a poet of the twelfth century, calls himself