Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England. Being a ...

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XXXll
PIIEFACE.
and ]Juii would he, thus
:
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Some of the first letters in the specimens before us
have no dot, and may perhaps be reckoned from the
beginning;, A.
Another method employed a line of dots instead of
upstrokes, so that Oxa appeared, if the groups of
letters remained the same, thus :
and Dun thus
In his Thesaurus, Hickes and his associate Wanley give
other methods employed by the Saxons, of which a
common one was to employ the next following letter
to that meant, so that Oxa would be Pyb, and Dun,
Evvo. These devices, which have in them something
of the quality of riddles and conundrums, were as
amusing to the idle mind in old times as they are
now. When among the varied accomplishments with
which men are gifted, we read in the Codex Exoniensis,
yum bi] life lienbij to apjiitanne popb jejij^no,
(hie is cunning handy to awrite ivord mysteries,
we have an allusion to this art of secret writinsr, or
to its kindred riddle puzzles.
There is but little encouragement to unravel these
marginal marks of the Leechbook, since the two specimens
afford us but a very scant basis for inductive
reasoning. But, doubtless, when laid before the inquisitive
eyes of restless men, they may naturally give
rise to some unhappy conjectures.
Norse clement. Perhaps in dissecting the curious mosaic work of
this Leechbook, we may be as much struck by the
Old Dansk, or as people now sa^'^, Norse element in
the words Torbegete, Rudniolin, 0ns woi'm, and the