Grammatica gramadach and gramadeg : vernacular grammar and grammarians in medieval Ireland and Wales The present study briefly considers the vernacular terminology used to describe figurative language in medieval Irish literature and then offers an analysis of three explicitly allegorical episodes from medieval Irish narrative texts (two in the vernacular and one in Latin) as preliminary groundwork in assessing whether literature which is not explicitly allegorical but which shares the same images and motifs as explicitly allegorical literature might also be read as allegory.