Ogham- the Celtic Oracular Alphabet

The Celtic Ogham alphabet dates from the fourth century. The alphabet is named for Ogmos, the Celtic god of knowledge and communication. Ogmos was associated with the Gaulish Ogmios and the Greek Hermes.

The alphabet consists of twenty letters, each named for a different tree believed sacred to the Druids. Each letter is made up of one to five straight or angled lines incised on a straight base line. Because the number of letters, and the number of lines that make up each letter, some scholars have theorized that the ogham may have originated as a system of hand signs. Examples of Ogham writing have been found all over the British Isles, and even as far away as Spain and Portugal. All surviving examples exist as stone carvings, usually on tombstones and road markers.

Although it is commonly used by modern Druids and other NeoPagans as a divination system, there is no real relationship between modern and historical divination systems. When used as a divination method, the letters are usually notched into straight twigs and used much like runes. In this case, I've provided a print version (MS Word) you can print and cut into small cards if you wish to try a simpler way of divining with ogham:A B

The following table gives the characters of the Elder futhark and their modern divinatory meanings:

Stave:letter: name:

modern divinatory meaning:

B Birch/Beth

Purification, cleansing, new beginnings

L Rowan/LuisProtection, instinctual knowledge

F Alder/Fearn

Decisions to be made; contact with the spiritual world

S Willow/SailleEqualibrium, attaining balance

N Ash/NuinRestriction or limitations

HHawthorn/Huatha

temporary limitations; obstacles 

D Oak/DuirStrength, endurance

T Holly/Tinneunity; courage; guidance

C Hazel/ColleCreativity, energy, "flow."

Q Apple/QuertChoices, a fork in the road

MVine/Muin (blackberry)

Insight, spiritual growth

G Ivy/Gorttread carefully; caution

Ng Reed/Ngetaldisturbance, disruption, surprises

St Blackthorn/straifconfusion, strife

R Elder/Ruisendings, timelessness

A Elm/Silver firForesight, perspective

O Furze/OnnDiscovery, abundance, goals met

U Heather/UraRest, suspension, hibernation

EWhite Poplar/Eadha

endurance; speech or communication

I Yew/Idhochange, endings, maturation

http://www.uponreflection.co.uk/ogham/alphabet.htm

The alphabet consists of 20 letters, arranged in 4 groups of five, though five more letters were added at a later date. The letters themselves were constructed from a series of straight lines incised across a single stave(a.k.a druim). These were usually written using the edge of a stone as a stave from the bottom > up they would then run right over the tip and down the other side(they were read from left to right)...this sometimes makes ogam very difficult to translate.Branch ogam was usually carved on a branch of the specific tree it is related to, the way it is inscribed is in the same vein as the stave version. This is the most commonly used for divination purposes, for those of you that wish to create your own ogam set, gently collect a branch from the specific plant, stave the end of slightly and carve into the exposed wood. These would then be cast or picked from a bag. If they are cast the relation between the overlapping twigs and the ogams meanings are to be integrated.Finger ogam was perhaps the most secret, because certain fingers related to specific letters/associations druids could pass secret messages by touching anothers hand in a certain way or by holding an object.If you click on any of the tree names you will be taken to a description of the relevant tree you will then need to press the link provided to return here.

http://www.yeoldelog.com/feature/ogham.shtml

THE OGHAM ALPHABET The Tree Alphabet of the Druids

The Ogham alphabet was used in Britain and Ireland some centuries before the introduction of the Latin ABC alphabet. In the 7th century AD, the latter was brought in by Benedictine monks, whose express task it was to create a new language to replace the old.

In the medieval Irish “Book of Ballymote”, its invention is credited to ‘Ogma Sun-face, son of Breas’, an early Goidel god. Goidels established themselves in Britain from the continent in about the 3rd or 2nd century BC and the common language of Bronze Age Britain and Ireland is thought to be an early form of Goidelic. However the accepted Irish tradition is that the alphabet originated in Greece and was brought to Ireland via Spain (not Gaul). Each letter of the alphabet was named after the tree or shrub of which it was the initial but common trees of Greece would have been the fig, olive, cypress, plane-tree, vine, pine and palm a fact that tends to refute this idea unless as Robert Graves, who explored the language at depth, suggests, its provenance was of the Southern Black Sea Coast region. Since all the trees are native to Britain excluding the vine, perhaps it is likely to have come from France/Germany after all particularly as all the trees figure prominently in European folk-lore.

As presented in Roderick O’Flaherty’s Ogygia and by O’Sullivan in Ledwich’s Antiquities of Ireland, the original Druidic alphabet (Beth-Luis-Nion) consisted of thirteen consonants and five vowels. Coupled with strong evidence in mythology, this led Graves to conjecture that the thirteen consonants could be identified with the thirteen months of the year (a lunar month being 28 days) forming a seasonal calendar of tree-magic. In fact the hawthorn to this day still carries the name ‘the May.’ The order of this ‘B-L-N’ alphabet was then of great importance. More accepted versions of the alphabet of the ‘B-L-F’ type consist of 15 consonants and 5 vowels. Here is one version:

In many other versions, P is replaced by Ng for Ngetal, represented by the reed.

Each letter was represent by nicks cut with a chisel along the edge of a squared stone. In the deaf-and-dumb language to which the alphabet corresponded these nicks could be indicated alone by fingers or by fingers against the shin, nose, thigh and foot. Besides these 20 letters, five combinations of vowels were used to represent five foreign sounds. These were Ea, Oi, Ia, Ui and X and they represented Kh, Th, P, Ph and X respectively. In inscriptions however, elaborate characters unlike for those of the other letters were used to represent these: Kh was represented by a St Andrew’s cross, Ph a spiral etc.

The writing of Ogham scripts was in the main reserved for public inscriptions to the dead and only when Druidism began to decline. Previous to that it had been kept a dark druidic secret. There are still numerous examples of ancient stone inscriptions on standing stones in Ireland, Isle of Man, North and South Wales, and Scotland dating from between the 4th and 7th centuries AD.

Graves, Robert 1999, The White Goddess, 4th Edition.

Ogham   

Origin

The Ogham alphabet is thought to be named after the Irish god Ogma. One theory of its origins is that it evolved out of a system of tallies used for accounting. Ogham is also known as or ogham craobh, beth luis fearn or beth luis nion.

About 500 Ogham inscriptions have been found in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England dating from between the 4th and 7th centuries AD. There are inscriptions in archaic forms of Gaelic and Pictish, which have not been deciphered. A handful of inscriptions featuring the Ogham script and the Latin alphabet have also been found.

While all surviving traces of Ogham are inscriptions on stone, it was probably more commonly inscribed on sticks, stakes and trees. Inscriptions generally take the form of somebody's name and the name of a place and were probably used to mark boundaries.

Notable features

Type of writing system: alphabet

Number of letters: 25

Writing surfaces: rocks, wood, manuscripts

Direction of writing: inscribed around the edges of rocks running from bottom to top and left to right, or left to right and horizontally in manuscripts.

Letters are linked together by a solid line.

The names and sounds represented by some of the letters are unknown.

The Eite (feather) and Eite thuathail (reversed feather) symbols are used at the beginning and end of sentences respectively.

The Ogham alphabet

Sample text in Ogham

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/forfeda

http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/ogham/ogh-alph.html

The Ogham Alphabet

with variant names of the letters,and names of the associated plants

This table includes names common in modern references. Everson provides a much more complete list of variant names.

  OGHAM LETTERS TREES

 standard name

Graves Pennick Thorsson EversonEnglish name

Scientific name

Beith Beth Beth Beithe Beith birch Betula pendula

Luis Luis Luis Luis Luis rowanSorbus aucuparia

Fern Fearn Fearn Fern Fern alder Alnus glutinosa

Sail Saille Saille Sail Sail willow Salix alba

Nion Nion Nion Nin Nuin ashFraxinus excelsior

Uath Uath Huath Huath hÚath hawthorn Crataegus spp.

Dair Duir Duir Duir Dair oak Quercus robur

Tinne Tinne Tinne Tinne Tinne holly Ilex aquifolium

Coll Coll Coll Coll Coll hazelCorylus avellana

Ceirt Quert Quert Queirt Cert appleMalus sylvestris

Muin Muin Muin Muin Muin vine Vitis vinifera

Gort Gort Gort Gort Gort ivy Hedera helix

nGéadal Ngetal Ngetal Ngetal nGétal reedPhragmites australis

Straif Straif Straif Straiph Straif blackthorn Prunus spinosa

 OGHAM LETTERS

TREES

 standard name

Graves Pennick Thorsson EversonEnglish name

Scientific name

Ailm Ailm Ailim Ailm Ailm white fir Abies alba

Onn Onn Onn Onn Onn gorseUlex europaeus

Úr Ura Ur Ur Úr heatherCalluna vulgaris

Eadhadh Eadha Eadha Edad Edad poplarPopulus tremula

Iodhadh Idho Iodho Idad Idad yew Taxus baccata

Éabhadh     Ebad Ébad    

Ór     Oir Ór    

Uilleann     Uileand Uilen    

Ifín     Iphin Ifín    

Eamhancholl     Phagos Emancholl    

Eite       Saigheadfeather or arrow

 

Spás       Bearna space  

Graves, Robert. 1966. The White Goddess. 2nd, enlarged

edition. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. Pennick, Nigel, and Nigel Jackson. 1991. The Celtic Oracle.

Aquarian Press, London.