The Doctor continues,
"To make the reader some amends for such a loss I have given a
specimen of supposed Druid writing, out of Lambecius' account of
the Emperor's library at Vienna. 'Tis wrote on a very thin plate
of gold with a sharp-pointed instrument. It was in an urn found
at Vienna, rolled up in several cases of other metal, together
with funeral exuviae. It was thought by the curious, one of those
epistles which the Celtic people were wont to send to their
friends in the other world. The reader may divert himself with
trying to explain it."
Has this inscription ever been explained, and how? Stukeley's book is by
no means a rare one; therefore I have not trusted myself to copy the
inscription: and such as feel disposed to help me in my difficulty would
doubtless prefer seeing the Doctor's own illustration at p. 31.
Henry Cunliffe.
Hyde Park Street.{120}
ATHELSTANE'S FORM OF DONATION.--MEANING OF "SOMAGIA."
Tristram Risdon, in his quaint _Survey of the Co. of Devon_, after
mentioning the foundation of the church of High Bickington by King
Athelstane,
"Who," he says, "gave to God and it one hide of land, as
appeareth by the donation, a copy whereof, for the antiquity
thereof, I will here insert: 'Iche Athelstane king, grome of
this home, geve and graunt to the preist of this chirch, one
yoke of mye land frelith to holde, woode in my holt house to
buyld, bitt grass for all hys beasts, fuel for hys hearth,
pannage for hys sowe and piggs, world without end,'"--
adds presently afterwards, that
"Sir John Willington gave _Weeksland_ in this tything, unto
Robert Tolla, _cum 40 somagia annuatim capiend in Buckenholt_
(so be the words of the grant) in the time of K.
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