Fellowship & Fairydust

Fogwr gaithi trie flod flescadt
forglas neol,
essa abhai, essnad ealao,
alaind ceoul

The voice of the wind against the branchy wood
upon the deep-blue sky:
falls of the river,
the note of the swan,
best of all music
~ From Lebor Gabála Érenn

Across the British Isles and especially in Ireland, you will find standing stones. They are not as imposing as the great dolmens of Stonehenge, or the mysterious whorl-carved rock of Newgrange. Some of them simply stand in pastures or under trees: serene, patient, unconcerned. Sheep crop the grass at their feet. Birds perch on them. You could pass them by, thinking they are natural features, and many do.

But if you take the time, if you stop and look closely, you’ll make a discovery. What seemed at first to be random scratchings resolves into a long line, cut with many series of short lines.

You have found an Ogham inscription.

The Ogham, a writing system of the peoples who shared something of a common culture through Britain, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and the Manx Isles, is many things. It’s an alphabet used to write out messages. As early as the second century, stones like the one on the hill of Ballycrovane harbour in Cork proclaimed things as pragmatic as property rights: that stone simply reads ‘belonging to Mac Deichet Uí Thorna’. Other Ogham writings are as complex as the people who wrote them, detailing legends and deeds.

Ogham is a mnemonic device used to instruct the student and keep knowledge in circulation. Comprised of four aicmes, or groups, the twenty letters of the Ogham were remembered by the people of Old Ireland much in the same way as we teach our young children their letters today. But rather than ‘A is for Apple, B is for Ball’, young Irish students learned that ‘Beith is for Birch, Luis is for Rowan’ as their teacher scratched the lines of each fid, or letter, across a long vertical stave. Read from the bottom of the stave to the top, Ogham asked the reader to begin their understanding at the root of things and work up from there.

These letters were linked to trees the children already knew and interacted with on a daily basis, so the symbols linked to something concrete in their minds and were retained. Even the way a person read was linked to the trees, as the teacher explained the symbols to the student.

The writing and teaching of the Ogham is described in the pages of the 7th century manuscript called the Auraicept na n-Éces, The Scholar’s Primer:

It e a n-airdi:
deasdruim, tuathdruim, leasdruim, tredruim, imdruim.
Is amlaid imdreangair crand i
saltrad fora frem in croind ar tus
do lam dess reut, do lam cle fo deoid…

These are their signs: right of the back (back = the stave)
left of the back,
athwart the back,
through the back,
around the back.
It’s how one climbs a tree,
treading on the root of the tree
first with your right hand before you
and your left hand after…

The symbols also linked to the stories and concepts each tree embodied within the culture, and as such they became a magic as well as a mark. To carve the lines of the ash tree over the door was to invoke the ash tree that weaves harmony between folk. To mark a hazelnut with the lines for Coll, the fid for the hazel tree, and then carry it was to invite the blessings of all that the hazel tree held: a sharp mind, a keen wit, and a thirst for knowledge. These associations, once ingrained in the mind, allow the user to change themselves through their use of the Ogham. Once you have changed yourself, you begin to change the world around you.

What the Ogham is not, is a divination system. It is an insight system. Though it may tell you where your feet will take you should you continue on the road you tread, the trees are not concerned with the future. They are firmly rooted in the here and now. Do not look to the Ogham to learn your fortune. Look to the Ogham to learn your own heart and the world you are in. The greatness of the Ogham is to make us be here and now, in this place and this time. Too many of us spend our lives chasing future events and forget to look around at the place we are standing now. The Ogham asks you to stand still and see.

If you are listening, the world has lessons to teach you today. Learn all you can and the future will no longer worry you, for you will know that you have the skills to face what it brings.

The Ogham is a tool for listening to your own heart and the world’s whisperings.

As these symbols are deeply tied to the uses and stories of the people who used them, to understand the Ogham you must learn the trees and the tales. In these pages you will be guided through the knowledge each tree has to impart. I often refer to Old Ireland and the Old Irish philosophies, as well as to a group of books, including the Book of the Takings of Ireland and the Brehon Laws.

The period is most clearly marked as the era stretching from the building of Newgrange in 3200 BC to the death of the last high king of Ireland in 1198. The books themselves are mainly recorded between the 4th and 10th centuries, though many sources surviving today are 12th century, along with newer copies of original texts, now lost. Archeologists and linguistic scholars agree on this time period as the Old Irish period, having unearthed and translated enough material to give us a clear picture of the social structure out of which the Ogham grew.

During this time, a continuous system of governance existed in Ireland, and extended somewhat through the British Isles: Petty kings–petty from the word petit, French for small-ruled kingdoms, elected by their lords and beholden to them. Petty kings owed fealty to a high king who held the power to arbitrate between them all. Nobles cared for their lands in the stead of their king, and held contracts with their tenants and peoples. Fillid taught, recorded history, and instructed through story and song. Druid kept the calendars of the seasons and oversaw the people’s spiritual wellbeing. Brehon used memorized tracts of law in the form of poems and three-part aphorisms known today as triads to make judgements on disputes and ensure order. Law was focused on recompense rather than punishment: repaying the damage you did was what mattered. This system was so ingrained in the people of Ireland that it survived well into the 17th century. Men and women took equal part and equal responsibility at their stations in life, and equal honor was accorded. To harm the honor of another—in modern terms, to cause psychological harm—had the same cost as physical wounding.

When you see the marks of the Ogham, know that this is the world they are rooted in. That world reaches out to us today in the branches of the trees, grounding us and keeping us steady. Turn the pages, and learn the lessons they offer.