Ossian Collection > Book of Deer

€be IBoofe of Deer.
similar causes may have led to those records of grants in the
Irish language, of the same date, which appear in the Book of
KehV
The writing of the Gospels is all in one uniform hand. The
illuminated figures of the Evangelists are designed with different
degrees of elaboration— that of St. John being finished with most
care. The ornamental borders are in some cases only partially
completed (Plates viii. xii. and xiii.)
Occasionally words omitted in the body of the page have been
inserted on the margin in the same hand as the rest, the omission
being indicated by a mark like that on the margin of Plate xx. (•/.)
At times the concluding words of a sentence are written on the
line above it, where room had been there left.
The ordinary ink is of a dark brownish colour, and tolerably
uniform. In the Celtic grants a marked difference occurs in the
colour of the two portions represented on Plates v. and vi.
The writing of the book extends across the page, and the lines
are continuous, in which respect its appearance differs from the Gos-
pels of Lindisfarne, where the lines are of unequal length.
The pages generally show marks of horizontal ruled lines,
drawn by some sharp instrument, and the writing hangs from, in-
stead of resting on these, a feature in which this manuscript agrees
with the second part of the Book of Armagh. On this point Dr.
Peeves remarks : " This was a peculiarity of Oriental writing, and
was adopted by the Irish for convenience, inasmuch as the upper
1 The Book of Kells is one of the are of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
earliest of the Irish Gospels, and is ascribed (The Miscellany of the Irish Arch. Soc,
to the hand of St. Columba himself. The vol. i. p. 127.)
charters of endowmentof the House of Kells