mild to be commanded; and it is a torment to chieftains to be restrained”. Two good examples of this use of the word ‘to happen together,’ of two events synchronizing, hitting the same point, &c., occur, ibid., p. 100, in adaiġ ro h‑urmaiseḋ ar Domnall do dirguḋ ocus do oirdneḋ i n‑oireċus Erenn, as i sin aḋaiġ ro h‑aentaiġid na h‑oireċta, “the night on which it was resolved that Domhnall should rule, and be elected to the sovereignty of Erin, was the night on which the assemblies were united,” &c. This should be “the night on which it happened to Domnall, to be elected was the very night on which”, &c. This is shown better perhaps in the following passage, p. 106: do h‑urmaised sén saeriġda, soineaṁail, do’n ardḟlaiṫ ocus d’ Erinn i coṁrac re ċeile, “the noble, happy prosperity of this monarch and of Erin were ordained together” (O’Don.); but the meaning is simply that the two events concurred. Similarly in F. Mast. we find the term used vaguely, with no due appreciation of the right meaning, e. gr. iii., p. 2282, do rala fordal conaire [“wandering from the way”: cf. iii., p. 2198] ocus seċrán slicċiḋ do na slocċaiḃ lá doḃar ḋorċa na h‑oiḋċe co nár urmaissettar a neolaiġ saiġiḋ gus an ionaḋ ċinnte, “the forces mistook their road and lost their way in consequence of the great darkness of the night, so that their guides were not able to make their way to the appointed place”; ii., p. 1452, ni ruaċt las an sluaġ ngaoiḋealaċ dol in inneall nó a norducċaḋ aṁail ro ḃa dír dóiḃ, ⁊ ní mó ro urmaissiot coṁairle a naireaċ do ġaḃail, “the Irish army were not able to go into order or array as was meet for them, nor did they take the advice of their chiefs” (O’Don.). In both instances the meaning is fairly enough given, but the force of urmais in the sense of ‘hitting’, ‘falling in with’, ‘happening upon’, &c., is not duly recognized and expressed.
It is, no doubt, unsafe to deduce conclusions from the etymological connexions of a word, but there are some words so peculiarly formed that they almost inevitably call attention to their origin. Thus a familiarity with the words etargne, etar-cne, ‘cognition’ (cf. ondstarcnu, ‘experimento’, Ml. 19 α13, 27 α5; cf. 19 d18, 42 b13, 27, etarcnaib, etarcnu, etarcnae); and bés, ‘custom’, suggests the explanation of beasgna, ‘law’, as bes-cna, ‘the knowledge of customs’: the early
