The Druid Path: Ogam Ogham Marks of the Bard

The Marks:

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ogham, ogam, or ogum , ancient Celtic alphabet of one of theIrish runic languages. It was used by the druids and abandonedafter the first few centuries of the Christian era. The oghamrunes remain only in gravestone inscriptions found mostly in WIreland and also in England, Scotland, and the Shetland Islands.The origin of ogham is uncertain; it contained 25 letters formed ofstraight lines and may have been adapted from a sign language. Atreatise on ogham, The Book of Ballymote (15 cent.), confirmsthat it was a secret, ritualistic language.

See R. A. Macalister, The Secret Languages of Ireland (1937).<<

ogham writing

or ogam writing or ogum writing

Alphabetic script used for writing the Irish and Pictish ( see Picts)languages on stone monuments, mostly circa AD 400–600. In itssimplest form, it consists of four sets of strokes, or notches, eachset containing five letters composed of from one to five strokes,thus creating 20 letters. A fifth set of five symbols, called forfeda (“extra letters”), was probably a later development. Mostinscriptions are short and consist only of names. Of the more than400 inscriptions known, about 330 are from Ireland.
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gham

Ogham ( ˈɔɣam, Modern Irish [ˈoːm] or [ˈoːəm], English ) is anEarly Medieval alphabet used primarily to represent the Old Irish language (and, occasionally, the Brythonic ancestor of Welsh). Ogham is sometimes referred to as the "Celtic Tree Alphabet",based on a High Medieval Bríatharogam tradition ascribing namesof trees to the individual letters.

There are roughly 400 surviving ogham inscriptions on stonemonuments throughout Ireland and Britain, the bulk of themstretching in arc from County Kerry in the south of Ireland acrossto Dyfed in south Wales. The remainder are mostly in south-eastern Ireland, western Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Englandaround the Devon/ Cornwall border. The vast majority of theinscriptions consist of personal names.

The etymology of the word ogam or ogham remains unclear. Onepossible origin is from the Irish og-úaim — 'point-seam', referringto the seam made by the point of a sharp weapon.

Origins

The evidence points to a creation date for ogham not post-datingthe 4th century. Although the use of "classical" ogham in stoneinscriptions seems to have flowered in the 5th– 6th centuries around the Irish Sea, from the phonological evidence it isclear that the alphabet predates the 5th century. A period ofwriting on wood or other perishable material prior to the preservedmonumental inscriptions needs to be assumed, sufficient for theloss of the phonemes represented by úath ("H") and straif ("Z"), aswell as the voiced labiovelar, gétal, all of which are clearly part ofthe system, but unattested in inscriptions.

In Ireland and in Wales, the language of the monumental stoneinscriptions is termed Primitive Irish. The transition to Old Irish, thelanguage of the earliest sources in the Latin alphabet, takes placein about the 6th century. Since ogham inscriptions consist almostexclusively of personal names and marks possibly indicating landownership, linguistic information that may be glimpsed from thePrimitive Irish period is mostly restricted tophonological developments.

Theories of origin

There are two main schools of thought among scholars as to themotivation for the creation of ogham. Scholars such as Carney andMacNeill have suggested that ogham was first created as a crypticalphabet, designed by the Irish so as not to be understood bythose with a knowledge of the Latin alphabet. In other words, itwas created by Irish scholars or druids for political, military orreligious reasons to provide a secret means of communication inopposition to the authorities of Roman Britain. The Roman Empire,which then ruled over neighbouring Britain, represented a very realthreat of invasion to Ireland, which may have acted as a spur tothe creation of the alphabet. Alternatively, in later centuries whenthe threat of invasion had receded and the Irish were themselvesinvading the western parts of Britain, the desire to keepcommunications secret from Romans or Romanised Britons wouldstill have provided an incentive.

The second main school of thought, put forward by scholars suchas McManus is that ogham was invented by the first Christiancommunities in early Ireland, out of a desire to have a uniquealphabet for writing short messages and inscriptions in the Irishlanguage. The argument is that the sounds of Primitive Irish wereregarded as difficult to transcribe into the Latin alphabet, so theinvention of a separate alphabet was deemed appropriate. Apossible such origin, as suggested by McManus (1991:41), is theearly Christian community known to have existed in Ireland fromaround AD 400 at the latest, the existence of which is attested bythe mission of Palladius by Pope Celestine I in AD 431. Palladiusdied and was buried at Auchenblae in the Mearns in easternScotland. These events may be associated with a Christiancommunity there propagating ogham to the otherwise anomalouscluster of inscriptions in eastern Scotland.

A variation on both theories is that the alphabet was first invented,for whatever reason, in 4th century Irish settlements in westWales after contact and intermarriage with Romanized Britons witha knowledge of the Latin alphabet. In fact, several ogham stones inWales are bilingual, containing both Irish and Brythonic-Latin (anancestor of contemporary Welsh), testifying to the Celtic contactthat led to the existence of some of these stones.

A third theory put forward by the noted ogham scholar R.A.S.Macalister was influential at one time, but finds little favour withscholars today Macalister believed that ogham was first invented inCisalpine Gaul around 600 B.C. by Gaulish druids as a secretsystem of hand signals, and was inspired by a form of the Greekalphabet current in Northern Italy at the time. According to thistheory, the alphabet was transmitted in oral form or on wood only,until it was finally put into a written form on stone inscriptions inearly Christian Ireland. Later scholars are largely united in rejectingthis theory however, primarily because a detailed study of theletters show that they were created specifically for the PrimitiveIrish of the early centuries AD. The supposed links with the form ofthe Greek alphabet that Macalister proposed can also be disproved.

Macalister's theory of hand or finger signals as a source for oghamis a reflection of the fact that the signary consists of four groups offive letters, with a sequence of strokes from one to five. A theorypopular among modern scholars is that the forms of the lettersderive from the various numerical tally-mark systems in existenceat the time. This theory was first suggested by the scholarsThurneysen and Vendryes, who proposed that the ogham scriptwas inspired by a pre-existing system of counting based around thenumbers five and twenty, which was then adapted to an alphabetform by the first ogamists.

It is clear that the ogham alphabet was modelled on another script,and some even consider it a mere cipher of its template script(Düwel 1968: points out similarity with ciphers of Germanic runes).The largest number of scholars favours the Latin alphabet as thistemplate, although the Elder Futhark and even the Greek alphabet have their supporters. Runic origin would elegantlyexplain the presence of "H" and "Z" letters unused in Irish, as wellas the presence of vocalic and consonantal variants "U" vs. "W"unknown to Latin or Greek writing. The Latin alphabet is the maincontender mainly because its influence at the required period (4thcentury) is most easily established, viz., via Britannia, while therunes in the 4th century were not very widespread even incontinental Europe.

Legendary accounts

According to the 11th c. Lebor Gabála Érenn, the 14th c. Auraicept na n-Éces, and other Medieval Irish folklore, ogham was firstinvented soon after the fall of the Tower of Babel, along with theGaelic language, by the legendary Scythian king, Fenius Farsa.According to the Auraicept, Fenius journeyed from Scythia togetherwith Goídel mac Ethéoir, Íar mac Nema and a retinue of 72scholars. They came to the plain of Shinar to study the confused languages at Nimrod's tower (the Tower of Babel). Finding thatthey had already been dispersed, Fenius sent his scholars to studythem, staying at the tower, coordinating the effort. After ten years,the investigations were complete, and Fenius created in Bérlatóbaide "the selected language", taking the best of each of theconfused tongues, which he called Goídelc , Goidelic, after Goídelmac Ethéoir. He also created extensions of Goídelc , called BérlaFéne , after himself, Íarmberla , after Íar mac Nema, and others,and the Beithe-luis-nuin (the ogham) as a perfected writing system for his languages. The names he gave to the letters werethose of his 25 best scholars.

Alternatively, the Ogam Tract credits Ogma mac Elathan ( Ogmios)with the script's invention. Ogma was skilled in speech and poetry,and created the system for the learned, to the exclusion of rusticsand fools. The first message written in Ogam were seven b 's on abirch, sent as a warning to Lug mac Elathan, meaning: "your wifewill be carried away seven times to the otherworld unless the birchprotects her". For this reason, the letter b is said to be namedafter the birch, and In Lebor Ogaim goes on to tell the traditionthat all letters were named after trees, a claim also referred to bythe Auraicept as an alternative to the naming after Fenius'disciples.

Alphabet - the Beith-Luis-Nin

Strictly speaking, the word ogham refers only to the form ofletters or script, while the letters themselves are known collectivelyas the Beith-luis-nin after the letter names of the first letters (inthe same manner as the Greek Alpha and Beta). The fact that theorder of the letters is in fact BLFSN led the scholar Macalister topropose that the letter order was originally BLNFS. This was to fitinto his own theories which linked the Beith-luis-nin to a form ofthe Greek alphabet current in Northern Italy in the 5th and 6thcenturies BC. However, there is no evidence for Macalister'stheories and they have since been discounted by later scholars.There are in fact other explanations for the name Beith-luis-nin .One explanation is that the word nin which literally means 'aforked branch' was also regularly used to mean a written letter ingeneral. Beith-luis-nin could therefore mean simply 'Beith-luisletters'. The other explanation is that Beith-luis-nin is a convenientcontraction of the first five letters thus: Beith-LVS-nin .

The ogham alphabet originally consisted of twenty distinctcharacters ( feda ), arranged in four series aicmí (plural of aicme "family"; compare aett). Each aicme was named after its firstcharacter ( Aicme Beithe , Aicme hÚatha , Aicme Muine , AicmeAilme , "the B Group", "the H Group", "the M Group", "the AGroup"). Five additional letters were later introduced (mainly in themanuscript tradition), the so-called forfeda.

The Ogam Tract also gives a variety of some 100 variant or secretmodes of writing ogham (92 in the Book of Ballymote), for examplethe "shield ogham" ( ogam airenach , nr. 73). Even the Younger Futhark are introduced as a kind of "Viking ogham" (nrs. 91, 92).

The four primary aicmí are, with their transcriptions in manuscripttradition and their names according to manuscript tradition innormalized Old Irish, followed by the their Primitive Irish soundvalues, and their presumed original name in Primitive Irish in caseswhere the name's etymology is known:

Left side/downward strokes

B beith [b] ( *betwias )
L luis [l]
F fearn [w] ( *wernā )
S saille [s] ( *salis )
N nuin [n]

Right side/upward strokes

H úath [y]?
D duir [d] ( *daris )
T tinne [t]
C coll [k] ( *coslas )
Q ceirt [k w ] ( *k w ertā )

Across/pendicular strokes

M muin [m]
G gort [g] ( *gortas )
NG gétal [g w ] ( *g w ēddlan )
Z straif [sw] or [ts]?
R ruis [r]

notches (vowels)

A ailm [a]
O onn [o] ( *osen )
U úr [u]
E edad [e]
I idad [i]

A letter for p is conspicuously absent, since the phoneme was lostin Proto-Celtic, and the gap was not filled in Q-Celtic, and no signwas needed before loanwords from Latin containing p appeared inIrish ( e.g. , Patrick). Conversely, there is a letter for the labiovelarq (ᚊ ceirt ), a phoneme lost in Old Irish. The base alphabet istherefore, as it were, designed for Proto-Q-Celtic.

Of the five forfeda or supplementary letters, only the first, ébad regularly appears in inscriptions, but mostly with the value K(McManus, § 5.3, 1991). The others, except for emancholl , haveat most only one certain 'orthodox' (see below) inscription each.Due to their limited practical use, later ogamists turned thesupplementary letters into a series of diphthongs, changingcompletely the values for pín and emancholl . This meant that thealphabet was once again without a letter for the P sound, forcingthe invention of the letter peithboc (soft 'B'), which appears in themanuscripts only.

EA ébad
OI óir
UI uillenn
P , later IO pín (later iphín )
X or Ch (as in loch ), later AE emancholl

Letter names

The letter names are interpreted as names of trees or shrubs inmanuscript tradition, both in Auraicept na n-Éces ('The Scholars'Primer') and In Lebor Ogaim ('The Ogam Tract'). They were firstdiscussed in modern times by Roderic O'Flaherty ( 1685), who tookthem at face value. The Auraicept itself is aware that not all namesare known tree names, saying "Now all these are wood names suchas are found in the Ogham Book of Woods, and are not derivedfrom men", admitting that "some of these trees are not knowntoday". The Auraicept gives a short phrase or kenning for eachletter, known as a Bríatharogam , that traditionally accompaniedeach letter name, and a further gloss explaining their meaningsand identifying the tree or plant linked to each letter. Only five ofthe twenty primary letters have tree names that the Auraiceptconsiders comprehensible without further glosses, namely beith "birch", fearn "alder", saille "willow" , duir "oak" and coll "hazel". All the other names have to be glossed or "translated"with a plant name.

According to the leading modern ogham scholar, Damian McManusthe "Tree Alphabet" idea dates to the Old Irish period (say, 10th century), but it post-dates the Primitive Irish period, or at least thetime when the letters were originally named. Its origin is probablydue to the letters themselves being called feda "trees", or nin "forking branches" due to their shape. Since a few of the letterswere, in fact, named after trees, the interpretation arose that theywere called feda because of that. Some of the other letter nameshad fallen out of use as independent words, and were thus free tobe claimed as "Old Gaelic" tree names, while others (such as ruis ,úath or gort ) were more or less forcefully re-interpreted asepitheta of trees by the medieval glossators.

McManus (1991, §3.15) discusses possible etymologies of all theletter names, and as well as the five mentioned above, he adds oneother definite tree name: onn "ash" (the Auraicept wrongly hasfurze). McManus (1988, p164) also believes that the name Idad isprobably an artificial form of Iubhar or yew, as the kenningssupport that meaning, and concedes that Ailm may possibly mean"pine tree" as it appears to be used to mean that in an eighthcentury poem. Thus out of twenty letter names, only eight at mostare the names of trees. The other names have a variety ofmeanings, which are set out in the list below.

Beith , Old Irish Beithe means " birch-tree", cognate to Latinbetula .
Luis , Old Irish Luis is either related to luise "blaze" or lus "herb". The arboreal tradition has caertheand " rowan".
Fearn , Old Irish Fern means " alder-tree", Primitive Irish*wernā , so that the original value of the letter was [w].
Sail , Old Irish Sail means " willow-tree", cognate to Latin salix.
Nion , Old Irish Nin means either "fork" or "loft". The arborealtradition has uinnius " ash-tree".
Uath , Old Irish Úath means úath "horror, fear", the arborealtradition has " white-thorn". The original etymology of the name,and the letter's value, are however unclear. McManus (1986)suggested a value [y]. Peter Schrijver (see McManus 1991:37)suggested that if úath "fear" is cognate with Latin pavere , atrace of PIE *p might have survived into Primitive Irish, butthere is no independent evidence for this.
Dair , Old Irish Dair means " oak" (PIE *doru- ).
Tinne , Old Irish Tinne from the evidence of thekennings means "bar of metal, ingot". The arboreal tradition hascuileand " holly".
Coll , Old Irish Coll meant " hazel-tree", cognate with Welshcollen , correctly glossed as cainfidh "fair-wood" ("hazel") by thearboreal interpretation. The Latin corylus is a possible cognate.
Ceirt , Old Irish Cert is cognate with Welsh pert "bush" , Latinquercus "oak" (PIE *perkwos ). It was confused with Old Irishceirt "rag", reflected in the kennings. The Auraicept glossesaball " apple".
Muin , Old Irish Muin : the kennings connect this name to threedifferent words, muin "neck, upper part of the back", muin "wile, ruse", and muin "love, esteem". The arboreal traditionhas finemhain " vine".
Gort , Old Irish Gort means "field" (cognate to garden ). Thearboreal tradition has edind " ivy".
nGéadal , Old Irish Gétal from the kennings has a meaning of"killing", maybe cognate to gonid "slays", from PIE . The valueof the letter in Primitive Irish, then, was a voiced labiovelar, [gw ]. The arboreal tradition glosses cilcach , " broom" or " fern".
Straif , Old Irish Straiph means "sulphur". The Primitive Irishletter value is uncertain, it may have been a sibilant differentfrom s , which is taken by sail , maybe a reflex of /st/ or /sw/.The arboreal tradition glosses draighin " blackthorn".
Ruis , Old Irish Ruis means "red" or "redness", glossed as trom " elder".
Ailm , Old Irish Ailm is of uncertain meaning, possibly "pine-tree". The Auraicept has crand giuis .i. ochtach , " fir-tree" or "pinetree".
Onn , Old Irish Onn means " ash-tree", although the Auraiceptglosses aiten " furze".
Úr , Old Irish Úr , based on the kennings, means "earth, clay,soil". The Auraicept glosses fraech " heath".
Eadhadh , Old Irish Edad of unknown meaning. The Auraiceptglosses crand fir no crithach "test-tree or aspen"
Iodhadh , Old Irish Idad is of uncertain meaning, but isprobably a form of ibhar " yew", which is the meaning given toit in the arboreal tradition.

of the forfeda, four are glossed by the Auraicept:

Eabhadh , Old Irish Ebhadh with crithach "aspen";
Ór , "gold" (from Latin aurum); the arboreal tradition has feorusno edind , "spindle tree or ivy"
Uilleann , Old Irish Uilleand "elbow"; the arboreal traditionhas edleand " honeysuckle"
Pín , later Ifín , Old Irish Iphin with spinan no ispin "gooseberry or thorn".

The fifth letter is Emancholl which means 'twin of hazel'

Corpus

] Monumental ogham inscriptions are found in Ireland and Wales,with a few additional specimens found in England, the Isle of Man,Scotland and Shetland. They were mainly employed as territorialmarkers and memorials (grave stones). The stone commemoratingVortiporius, a 6th century king of Dyfed (originally located inClynderwen), is the only ogham stone inscription that bears thename of an identifiable individual. The language of the inscriptionsis predominantly Primitive Irish and Old Irish, apart from the fewexamples in Scotland, such as the Lunnasting stone, which recordfragments of what is probably the Pictish language.

The more ancient examples are standing stones, where the scriptwas carved into the edge ( droim or faobhar ) of the stone, whichformed the stemline against which individual characters are cut.The text of these "Orthodox Ogham" inscriptions is read beginningfrom the bottom left-hand side of a stone, continuing upward alongthe edge, across the top and down the right-hand side (in the caseof long inscriptions). Roughly 380 inscriptions are known in total (anumber, incidentally, very close to the number of knowninscriptions in the contemporary Elder Futhark), of which thehighest concentration by far is found in the southwestern Irishprovince of Munster. One third of the total are found in Co Kerry alone.

Later inscriptions are known as "scholastic", and are post 6thcentury in date. The term 'scholastic' derives from the fact that theinscriptions are believed to have been inspired by the manuscriptsources, instead of being continuations of the original monumenttradition. Unlike orthodox ogham, some mediæval inscriptionsfeature all five Forfeda. Scholastic inscriptions are written onstemlines cut into the face of the stone, instead of along its edge.Ogham was also occasionally used for notes in manuscripts downto the 16th century. A modern ogham inscription is found on agravestone dating to 1802 in Ahenny, County Tipperary.

In Scotland, a number of inscriptions using the ogham writingsystem are known, but their language is still the subject of debate.It has been argued by Richard Cox in The Language of OghamInscriptions in Scotland (1999) that the language of these is OldNorse, but others remain unconvinced by this analysis, and regardthe stones as being Pictish in origin. However due to the lack ofknowledge about the Picts, the inscriptions remain undeciphered,their language possibly being non- Indo-European. The Pictishinscriptions are scholastic, and are believed to have been inspiredby the manuscript tradition brought into Scotland by Gaelicsettlers.

Non-monumental uses

As well as its use for monumental inscriptions, the evidence fromearly Irish sagas and legends indicates that ogham was used forshort messages on wood or metal, either to relay messages or todenote ownership of the object inscribed. Some of these messagesseem to have been cryptic in nature and some were also formagical purposes. In addition, there is evidence from sources suchas In Lebor Ogaim, or the Ogham Tract, that ogham may havebeen used to keep records or lists, such as genealogies andnumerical tallies of property and business transactions. There isalso evidence that ogham may have been used as a system offinger or hand signals.

In later centuries when ogham ceased to be used as a practicalalphabet, it retained its place in the learning of Gaelic scholars andpoets as the basis of grammar and the rules of poetry. Indeed,until modern times the Latin alphabet in Gaelic continued to betaught using letter names borrowed from the Beith-Luis-Nin , alongwith the Medieval association of each letter with a different tree.

Unicode

The ogham alphabet is allotted Unicode range U+1680 – U+169F(as of version 4.1). The spelling of the names given is astandardization dating to 1997, used in Unicode Standard and inIrish Standard 434:1999.

U+1680   OGHAM SPACE MARK

U+1681 ᚁ OGHAM LETTER BEITH

U+1682 ᚂ OGHAM LETTER LUIS

U+1683 ᚃ OGHAM LETTER FEARN

U+1684 ᚄ OGHAM LETTER SAIL

U+1685 ᚅ OGHAM LETTER NION

U+1686 ᚆ OGHAM LETTER UATH

U+1687 ᚇ OGHAM LETTER DAIR

U+1688 ᚈ OGHAM LETTER TINNE

U+1689 ᚉ OGHAM LETTER COLL

U+168A ᚊ OGHAM LETTER CEIRT

U+168B ᚋ OGHAM LETTER MUIN

U+168C ᚌ OGHAM LETTER GORT

U+168D ᚍ OGHAM LETTER NGEADAL

U+168E ᚎ OGHAM LETTER STRAIF

U+168F ᚏ OGHAM LETTER RUIS

U+1690 ᚐ OGHAM LETTER AILM

U+1691 ᚑ OGHAM LETTER ONN

U+1692 ᚒ OGHAM LETTER UR

U+1693 ᚓ OGHAM LETTER EADHADH

U+1694 ᚔ OGHAM LETTER IODHADH

U+1695 ᚕ OGHAM LETTER EABHADH

U+1696 ᚖ OGHAM LETTER OR

U+1697 ᚗ OGHAM LETTER UILLEANN

U+1698 ᚘ OGHAM LETTER IFIN

U+1699 ᚙ OGHAM LETTER EAMHANCHOLL

U+169A ᚚ OGHAM LETTER PEITH

U+169B ᚛ OGHAM FEATHER MARK (marks beginning of text)

U+169C ᚜ OGHAM REVERSED FEATHER MARK (marks end of text)

Neopaganism

Modern New Age and Neopagan approaches to ogham largelyderive from the theories of Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess. In this work Graves took his inspiration from the theoriesof the ogham scholar R.A.S Macalister (see above) and elaboratedon them much further. Graves proposed that the ogham alphabetencoded a set of beliefs originating in the Middle-east in Stone Age times, concerning the ceremonies surrounding the worship ofthe Moon-goddess in her various forms. Graves' argument isextremely complex, but in essence he argues that the Hebrews,Greeks and Celts were all influenced by a people originating in theAegean, called ' the people of the sea' by the Egyptians, whospread out around Europe in the 2nd Millennium BC, taking theirreligious beliefs with them. At some early stage these teachingswere encoded in alphabet form by poets in order to pass on theirworship of the goddess (as the muse and inspiration of all poets) ina secret fashion, understandable only to initiates. Eventually, viathe druids of Gaul, this knowledge was passed on to the poets ofearly Ireland and Wales. Graves therefore looked at the TreeAlphabet tradition surrounding ogham and explored the treefolklore of each of the letter names, proposing that the order of theletters formed an ancient "seasonal calendar of tree magic.Although his theories have been disregarded by modern scholars(including Macalister himself, with whom Graves corresponded ),they have been taken up with enthusiasm by the neopaganmovement. In addition, Graves followed the BLNFS order of oghamletter put forward by Macalister (see above), with the result thatthis has been taken up by New Age and Neopagan writers as the'correct' order of the letters, despite its rejection by scholars.

The main use of ogham by modern Druids, Neo-Pagans is for thepurpose of divination. Divination by using ogham symbols ismentioned in Tochmarc Étaíne, a tale in the Irish Mythological Cycle. In the story, druid Dalan takes four wands of yew, andwrites ogham letters upon them. Then he uses the tools fordivination. The tale doesn't explain further how the sticks arehandled or interpreted.

Some Neopagans and other interested people use ogham as adivination system, in a manner reminiscent of the incompletedescription in Tochmarc Étaíne . They create a series of sticks, onefor each letter. The sticks may be used in a fashion similar to runic divination. Another method requires a cloth marked out with Finn's Window. A person selects some sticks randomly, throws them onthe cloth, and then looks both at the symbols and where they fell.

The divinatory meanings are usually based on the tree ogham,rather than the kennings of the Bríatharogam. Each letter isassociated with a tree or other plant, and meanings are derivedfrom them. Robert Graves' book The White Goddess has been amajor influence on assigning divinatory meanings for ogham. Somereconstructionists of Druidic ways use Briatharogam kennings as abasis for divinatory meanings in ogham divination. The three setsof kennings can be separated into Past-Present-Future or Land-Sea-Sky groupings in such systems, but other organizingstructures are used, as well.

Notes

References

Carney, James. The Invention of the Ogam Cipher 'Ériu' 22,1975, pp 62 -3, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy
Düwel, Klaus. Runenkunde (runic studies). Stuttgart/Weimar:Metzler, 1968. OCLC 183700
Forsyth, Katherine. The Ogham Inscriptions of Scotland: AnEdited Corpus , PhD Dissertation, Harvard University (Ann Arbor:UMI, 1996). OCLC 48938210
Gippert, Jost; Hlaváček, Ivan; Homolka, Jaromír. Ogam. Einefrühe keltische Schrifterfindung , Praha: Charles University,1992. ISBN 80-901489-3-X OCLC 39570484
Macalister, Robert A.S. The Secret Languages of Ireland , pp27 -36, Cambridge University Press, 1937
Macalister, Robert A.S. Corpus inscriptionum insularumcelticarum . First edition. Dublin: Stationery Office, 1945-1949.OCLC 71392234
McManus, Damian. Ogam: Archaizing, Orthography and theAuthenticity of the Manuscript Key to the Alphabet , Ériu 37,1988, 1-31. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. OCLC 56088345
McManus, Damian. A Guide to Ogam , Maynooth 1991. ISBN 1-870684-17-6 OCLC 24181838
MacNeill, Eoin. Archaisms in the Ogham Inscriptions ,'Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy' 39, pp 33-53, Dublin
O'Brien, M.A. Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae Maynooth: AnSagart, 1991, vol. 1, 2nd edition. ISBN 0-901282-31-6 OCLC56540733
Raftery, Barry. A Late Ogham Inscription from Co. Tipperary ,Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 99, 1969.ISSN 0035-9106 OCLC 6906544
Swift, C. Ogam Stones and the Earliest Irish Christians ,Maynooth: Dept. of Old and Middle Irish, St. Patrick's College,1997. ISBN 0-901519-98-7 OCLC 37398935
Ranke-Graves, Robert von. Die Weisse Göttin: Sprache desMythos ( The White Goddess ), ISBN 978-3-499-55416-2 OCLC52100148, several re-editions, but rarely available. Editionsavailable in German and English.
Sims-Williams, Patrick. The Celtic Inscriptions of Britain:Phonology and Chronology, c. 400—1200. (Publications of thePhilological Society 37) Oxford : Blackwell Publishing, 2003.ISBN 1-4051-0903-3
Thurneysen, Zum ogam Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschenSprache und Literatur, pp196-7, 1937
Vendryes L'écriture ogamique et ses origines Études Celtiques,4, 1931, pp110- 113,

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Books:

AURAICEPT NA N-ÉCES

THE SCHOLARS’ PRIMER

BEING THE TEXTS OF THE OGHAM TRACT FROM THE

BOOK OF BALLYMOTE AND THE YELLOW BOOK OF

LECAN, AND THE TEXT OF THE TREFHOCUL

FROM THE BOOK OF LEINSTER

EDITED FROM

EIGHT MANUSCRIPTS, WITH INTRODUCTION, TRANSLATION

OF THE BALLYMOTE TEXT, NOTES, AND INDICES

GEORGE CALDER, B.D.

Lecturer in Celtic, University of Glasgow

EDINBURGH: JOHN GRANT

31 GEORGE IV. BRIDGE

1917

Download: E Book PDF Text
https://archive.org/details/auraicept00calduoft
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In HTML

http://www.nordic-life.org/nmh/AuraiceptEngOriginal.htm
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R. A. Macalister, The Secret Languages of Ireland (1937).

Download:
https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_sth_vertxt-1
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Drom Searles O'Dubhain

A Guide to Ogam by Damian McManus,

The Book of Ogham by Edred Thorsson and then Michael Kelly,

The Poet's Ogam: A Living Magical Tradition by John-Paul Patton,

The Celtic Tree Oracle: A System of Divination by Colin Murray, Liz Murray and Vanessa Card,

I also recommend reading every ancient Irish tale one can find as they all tie into the Oghm. I also have a few books on the subject that I've written.

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Reference Links:

http://www.reference.com/browse/ogham

http://oghamofogma.wordpress.com/

One of the best language script sites.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ogham.htm

The Druid Path is a Cosmic Salamander Inc. Reading and Discussion Room Blog of
Face Book Group of " The Druid Path" for our reading and study discussions.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheDruidPath/

Which is part of "How to be a Druid" FB group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/howtobeadruid/

The Druid Path

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Ogam Ogham Marks of the Bard