The origin of the Celtic tree Ogham (also spelled Ogam) is unknown and there is plenty of speculation. Even the simple fact of how to pronounce the word various from Oh-m to Oh-wam to Oh-yam—take your pick. Some believe the Ogham could have been a way to write the Norse runes, others say that it was developed from the Latin and Greek systems of writing, and still others believe it was completely separate from these. There is an elaborate explanation on how the Ogham evolved from the Roman alphabet—this includes a convoluted description of adding and subtracting letters and sometimes working backwards to reach the correct order of letters. It seems that almost everything about the Ogham is in dispute. According the Charles Graves an Ogham “inscription itself is called fair writing”. He considered it different from the writing of books and documents.

There are several schools of thought concerning the name itself. One is that it comes from myth. According to legend, the Ogham was created by Ogma the son of Breas. He was known as “Ogma the Eloquent” and has been labeled the God of Literature. Ogma’s “golden speech” has been represented in artwork with a gold chain extending form his mouth to the ear of his listeners.

Some scholars believe that the word “Ogham” is related to Latin. Others claim that it has a Greek origin because of the Greek word ogmos, which means “furrow”. When Ogham characters are carved into rock or wood the strokes look like small furrows. Since the Celts of Gaul conducted a thriving trade with the merchants of Greece, they were not only familiar with the Greek language, but used it in recording common transactions.

Because the first 20 characters of the Ogham are straight lines, rather than being “written”, carved or painted on something there is speculation that the characters were simply laid out on a flat surface using twigs or groupings of leaves. Carving the letters into wood is thought to have been a later development followed even later by carving them into stone. Just as archaeological evidence has revealed that Stonehenge was preceded by a woodhenge.

What we do know is that approximately 370 inscriptions exist in stone. These are standing stones that range from three to nine feet tall. Most of these are located in the southwest province of Munster in Ireland with about one-third of the total in County Kerry. There is a scattering of these stones in Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and Devonshire, England. Scholars disagree on the dates of these Ogham stones, but many place the timeframe from 300 to 600 C.E.

Similar markings on standing stones found in Spain and Portugal have been dated to 500 B.C.E. It has been suggested that this may have been a pre-cursor to the Ogham developed by the Celtic tribes on the Iberian Peninsula who may have migrated to Ireland. Harvard Professor Barry Fell, long-term president of the Epigraphic Society took the risk of suggesting that markings on stones found throughout the United States are also a form of Ogham used by wide-ranging tribes of Celts. Few people have taken this theory seriously and it unfortunately seems to have discredited some of this other work.

Many details about the Ogham come from The Book of Ballymote, which was was compiled in 1391 for Tonnaltagh McDonagh of Ballymote Castle, County Sligo. This “book” is a collection of older manuscripts and documents of history, legend and religion. Some of the manuscripts are thought to have been copied from 9th century sources. Other books that mention the Ogham include The Yellow Book of Lecan (1416), The Book of Lismore (late 14th/early 15th century), and The Book of Leinster (12th century). These books are similar to The Book of Ballymote in that they are manuscript collections of prose and poetry containing history, lore, legal, medical and religious writings. Other 12th century sources for information on the Ogham include Aurcaicept na nÉces (The Scholar’s Primer ), Lebor Ogam (The Book of Ogham), and De Duibh Feda na Forfid (Values of the Forfeda).

While The Book of Leinster makes reference to the Ogham being in use centuries earlier, some scholars believe that these references and others, such as those contained in the Táin Bó Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), were 12th century additions to the manuscripts. According to Charles Graves, while the Brehon Laws (circa 438 C.E.) mention the Ogham, the older volumes contained within, such as the Book of Aicil and the Senchus Mor, do not. According to Peter Beresford Ellis there are at least 400 Irish manuscripts that have not been translated—more information on the Ogham could be waiting discovery.
Very few references to the use of the Ogham mention that it was used for divination. Miranda Green suggests that the idea of divination is a mistaken translation of the word for-cain which can mean “prophey/predict” or “sang-over” referring to an oral teaching process of repeating lessons in chorus. A medical manuscript from 1509 (in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin) mentions cures that included hitting an afflicted person with a rod marked with the Ogham. The type of wood depended on the cure needed, i.e. elm for impotence. The Ogham inscription could consist of the person’s name or, according to other sources, a spell. It was believed that this action would release the illness from the person’s body.

A story in The Book of Leinster tells about a prince who goes off to battle with a shield marked with Ogham characters. He was saved by a Druid who clued him into the contents of the message, which were instructions to have the prince killed. In many stories of the Ulster Cycle, Cu Chulainn frequently leaves notice of a challenge for his enemies with objects marked with Ogham.

A few sources mention the Ogham as a means to inscribe a person’s name on a standing stone used to mark their grave. Caitlin and John Matthews note that The Book of Lismore indicates “Ogham names were written” rather than saying that a person’s name was written in Ogham. Charles Graves also raised this point and suggested that a person’s “Ogham name” was different from the name by which they were ordinarily known. This brings up questions for which we have no answers: Does this indicate that people used clan or ceremonial/magic names? Magical uses of the Ogham are mentioned in numerous accounts. Many of us today use ritual/magic names so this may not be so extravagantly unusual.

Many of the standing stones marked with the Ogham are not burial markers. Charles Graves suggested that these pillar stones (called Gallan) were some sort of tribal boundary markers. Since the Ogham did not appear to be commonly used by all people in Celtic society, Graves suggested that the information on these pillar stone landmarks was understood by those who needed to know and would not have been easily forged. The Ogham seems to have been understood by the “literary hierarchy” of bards, druids and the upper ranks of warriors. The prince in the story from The Book of Leinster mentioned earlier was obviously not one of them. Celtic society was stratified and the common people would not know how to decipher the Ogham messages.

One theory on the original use of the Ogham suggests that it was created for musical notation for the harp, perhaps because The Book of Ballymote refers the various types as “Ogham scales”. Some of these actually resemble written music more than an alphabet. Another is that it began as a sign language and that the written characters were merely an imitation of the hand and finger positions. R.A.S. Macalister based the latter theory on the fact that the Ogham’s original 20 characters are grouped by fives because people have five fingers on each hand. There is also the theory that it served as a form of speech that was only understood by the initiated.

The 19th century “Celtic Revival” in literature and art not only fueled an interest in the Ogham but also romanticized the antiquity of it. Charles Graves declared that it was not an ancient alphabet and that it originated in the early Christian period. Scholars today are leaning more to a 500 – 600 C.E. date range and some theorize that it could have been invented as a reaction to Christianity. While the Celts were quick to pick up some parts of Christianity fairly quickly, the overall change from a Pagan to Christian spirituality in Ireland took place over a long period of time—approximately from the third to eighth century. During this time there was a rich melange of ideas and faiths. Even as the Irish gravitated to the new religion, they took it on their own terms. The Celtic cross is an integration of Pagan and Christian symbols. In churches outside of Ireland you won’t find the Shiela-na-gig.

The Ogham and Poets
Ogham is sometimes referred to as the poetic alphabet because bards and people of learning used it. While we tend to think of a bard/poet as an entertainer (i.e. the bard Shakespeare) in Celtic culture a bard was more of a sacred storyteller, “musical dream weaver” and keeper of rituals. The next level in the druidic order were the ovates the shamanic journeyers who sought wisdom from the ancestors and the natural world. The druids were the teachers, advisors and custodians of knowledge.

Many agree that the Ogham may have been used to pass information beyond a name or word written with its characters. In addition to being associated with a particular tree, each letter is believed to have also corresponded to certain people, locations, animals, and particular objects. References to the Ogham in The Book of Ballymote indicate that it was used for communications that could “pass unnoticed by the uninitiated”. Rather than being an alphabet that was written and read like Latin and Greek, the cryptic characters of the Ogham were abstract symbols—“keys” to a wealth of information. If you have tried using the Ogham, you will have found that the letters are not practical for writing more than simple inscriptions.
Throughout history there have been secret alphabets devised for numerous reasons, but the Ogham was more wide-spread and seemingly in use for a longer time period than others. While not an alphabet, Cockney rhyming slang has been around (and evolving) since the 16th century, but few people outside of the England are familiar with it and can much less use it.

Robert Graves suggested that the Ogham was employed in its latest period of use as a method for secretly passing information by Welsh bards who did not agree with the poetic/spiritual themes proscribed by the powerful prince bishops. The Ogham could have been used to pass along, without detection, ideas that may have been deemed “inappropriate”. This would coincide with the British conquests of 1541–1691 when Ireland came under English rule and the Brehon Laws were replaced with the English rule of law. The use of the native language and circulating books in anything but English was difficult. According to Peter Berresford Ellis, “Books in Irish were to be destroyed and all native centers of learning were closed.” This was a sad state of affairs for Ireland as it had been the beacon of education and learning for Europe during the Dark Ages.

In its use as a sign language, each letter was assigned a point (fingertips and joints) on the hand whereby information could be discreetly passed by touching these points on the hand and fingers. Robert Graves referred to this method as the “finger keyboard”. Other similar methods were used by touching the side of one’s nose or shin with a part of a finger to indicate information embodied by the letter associated with that point on the finger. Curiously, only 19 of the 20 core characters were assigned to the hand Ogham. It is not known why the 20th letter or the other set of five characters were not employed in this type of system.

Another theory put forth by Robert Graves for the possible use of this hand system is that it could have also served as a memory aid. History, myth, religion (wisdom) was passed on orally and it is not inconceivable that many such aide-mémoire were developed and employed. Look at the length of the poems and ask yourself if you could learn, retain and recite these without some type of help. One such long poem that Graves associated with the Ogham was The Battle of the Trees. Its title in the original Welsh is Câd Goddeu. This epic saga tells the story of the god Gwydion invading the Underworld with a battalion of trees. Each type of tree exhibits a particular strength, which has come down through the centuries as aspects and powers associated with the trees.
The Battle of the Trees has also been interpreted as an intellectual battle rather than a physical one. Graves has suggested that it could have been a “mythographic short hand” that relayed “an important religious event in pre-Christian Britain”.

Druidic training took about 20 years in order to learn the massive amount of material. It wasn’t simply a matter of being familiar with all of the long poems—it was committing them to memory. We know the druids of Gaul had an aversion to copying this material into manuscripts. A source for this information is Julius Caesar (102 – 44 B.C.E.). In his account, The Gallic Wars, he mentions that, “...they neither desire their doctrines to be divulged among the mass of the people, nor those who learn, to devote themselves the less to the efforts of memory, relying on writing...” . This supports the theory that the Ogham may have served as an aide-mémoire. It has also been cited as proof that the Ogham existed Before the Common Era, however, Caesar does not mention the Ogham itself or other memory aid that the druids may have used at that time.

Part of the aversion to committing information to paper could have been an issue of trust. When you are speaking with someone you know that person and you know (or you can make a judgement) whether or not you trust him/her. When something is written you do not necessarily know the true source of the information and whether or not what is written is authentic. And, of course, another difference is that the spoken word is alive—full of depth, tone and inflection.

We know that an aversion to writing was not for lack of a written language since the Celts used Greek for commerce. Historical and spiritual matters may have been deemed too important to reduce to a document. (The great legends were not written down until the Christian era.) Words had a “mystic significance” that would be dulled or less alive if they were static on a page. Knowledge tucked away in a book is not immediately available. If wisdom is held in the mind, one has total access to it.

Depictions of druids and bards usually include mention of the staves—Taball-Lrog—the poet’s staff. This was not a simple walking stick, but rather a number of flat rods connected at one end that could be spread opened like a fan. Descriptions mention that the rods were covered with Ogham character, making the instrument a sort of multi-purpose shaleighle.

Since trees were believed to hold wisdom and teaching was done in groves, it would seem to follow that tree names were used for the names of letters. Beith/birch is the first letter and it has been suggested that the Ogham was first written on birch. As usual, there is disagreement on the time and significance of the names. Peter Berresford Ellis asserts that the characters were not assigned the tree names until the 14th century and then only for the purpose of teaching children—not unlike modern alphabet songs.
It seems that almost everything connected with the Ogham from its name, characters and origin is in dispute. It is important to keep in mind that we will probably never have all of these questions answered. The idea of a mystical Ogham has captured the imaginations of many who have expanded and incorporated it into their practices. How ancient the Ogham is less important that the symbols it represents today. Symbols are effective because they are understood. While the original meaning of the Ogham may be lost and modern ones created, they are what we understand them to be. It is the value we ascribe to them that has meaning for us. However, it is important to keep an open mind to new research and ideas and to be able to adjust our use and meaning of these symbols. Spirituality and reality evolve. A living, breathing, advancing faith ultimately provides deeper meaning.

© Llewellyn - Whispers from the Woods