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FYI: TRIVIUM RESEARCH TIDBITS ON DRUIDRY AND THE OGHAM ALPHABET
Once a month, I'll focus on Druidry and the Ogham Alphabet to give my Trivium World authenticity and depth. Do read the novel beforehand. All FYI sections contain SPOILERS.
Druidry: Focus for winter 2021
The Ogham Alphabet
Finn Goodwin's knowledge of the Ogham alphabet helps decipher the codes hidden within the portfolio drawings. Eventually, the information he gleans from the drawings leads Billie to La Fontana and a confrontation that propels her memory toward its dreaded reckoning.
Why is it called Ogham?
Ogham is named after the Irish Celtic God Ogma, the deity of learning and poetry who invented the alphabet. The word Ogham means 'language.'
What is the Ogham?
Basically, the Ogham is an alphabet used in pre-written history to mark graves and signposts whose letter names correspond to the names of trees or shrubs indigenous to the landscape of the British Isles. Originally, the alphabet consisted of twenty letters or feda forming the four original Aicme (or families):
The Aicme Beth
- Beth for birch
- Luis for Rowan
- Fearn for Alder
- Saille for Willow
- Nuin for Ash
The Aicme Huath
- Huath for Hawthorn
- Duir for Oak
- Tinne for Holly
- Coll for Hazel
- Quert for Apple
The Aicme Muin
- Muin for Vine
- Gort for Ivy
- nGetal for Broom
- Straif for Blackthorn
- Ruis for Elder
The Aicme Ailim
- Ailim for Pine
- Onn for Gorse
- Ur for Heather
- Eadha for Aspen
- Ioho for Yew
Five additional letters were added (called Forfeda) and arranged in their own Aicme to represent foreign sounds or diphthongs introduced by the Romans and other travellers.
The Forfeda Aicme
- EA (eabhadh) for Aspen
- OI (oir) for Gold
- UI (uilleann) for elbow
- IO (pin) for spine or thorn
- CH or X (eamhan or choll) for twin of hazel
- P (peith) for birch
The Ogham is also known by the first three letters in sequence: either Beth-Luis-Fearn and Beth-Luis-Nuin. The Beth-Luis-Nuin references an earlier sequence of letters.
The Actual Letters Transcribed Horizontally
Reprinted from The White Goddess by Robert Graves. Graves attributes the sequence to Macalister.
Ogham as a secret code
R. A. Stewart Macalister and Robert Graves
R. A. Stewart Macalister (1870-1950) professor of Celtic archaeology at University College, Dublin from 1909 to 1943 edited a catalog of all know Ogham inscriptions in Great Britain and Ireland.
Macalister believed that the Ogham alphabet was invented in Gaul around 600 BC by Gaulish Druids as a secret system of hand signals. Inspired by a form of the Greek alphabet current in Northern Italy at the time, the alphabet was transmitted in oral form or etched in wood only, until it was finally put into a written form on stone inscriptions in early Christian Ireland.
Macalister's theory of hand of finger signals conveniently corresponds to the Ogham's format of four original groups of five letters, crafted with stroke sequences from one to five.
The term 'Ogham' refers only to the format of the letters or their script. The letters themselves are known collectively as Beth-Luis-Nuin, taken from the first three consecutive letters of the alphabet. (Similarly, the English language alphabet is referred to as the A-B-Cs.) Macalister proposed that the letter order was originally B-L-N-F-S, referencing Beth-Luis-Nuin-Fearn and Saille which helped to support his theory connecting the Ogham to the Greek alphabet.
When Robert Graves created his Tree Calendar, he based it on Macalister's Beth-Luis-Nuin sequence even though most scholars discounted Macalister's theory of the alphabet's origin. Graves needed to utilize that particular sequence to validate other poetically-derived suppositions in his book, "The White Goddess." He claims the Druids gauged their months according to the phases of the moon. Therefore, he claims they originated and utilized the thirteen month calendar he cites in the White Goddess to measure a year's time. This calendar uses the Beth-Luis-Nuin sequence which starts on December 24th and goes from new moon to new moon. Once Graves made this assumption, many pagan groups accepted it as gospel even though there is no known association between Celtic calendars and trees representing certain months. Graves corresponded with R. A. Stewart Macalister and employs his theory to validate his fabricated tree calendar.
The Song of Amergin
Graves offers an ancient Irish song as proof. By rewriting the verses of the Song of Amergin, he claims his arrangement of the letters of the Ogham is valid.
Graves Version of the Song of Amergin
I am a stag: of seven tines,
I am a flood: across a plain,
I am a wind: on a deep lake,
I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,
I am a hawk: above the cliff,
I am a thorn: beneath the nail,
I am a wonder: among the flowers,
I am a wizard: who but I
Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?
I am a spear:that roars for blood,
I am a salmon: in a pool,
I am a lure: from paradise,
I am a hill: where poets walk,
I am a boar: ruthless and red,
I am a breaker: threatening doom,
I am a tide: that drags to death,
I am an infant: who but I
Peeps into the unknown dolmen arch?
I am the womb: of every holt,
I am the blaze: on every hill,
I am the queen: of every hive,
I am the shield: for every head,
I am the tomb: of every hope.
A nice effort by Graves, but one which bears little resemblance to the original song.
Graves rearranges the letters of the Ogham alphabet and drops two of the consonants as late additions. This reduces the basic letters from 15 consonants and five vowels to 13 consonants and five vowels. The thirteen consonants then correspond to the 13 lunar months of contrived solar year.
The resulting calendar bears no resemblance to any traditional Celtic time keeping system and ignores the fire festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh. It also misrepresents nature itself. by fabricating a system of 28 day months which does not account for 365 days of a solar year.
In my novel, Trivium: the Lovers, the calendar found in the portfolio drawing accesses both the Beth-Luis-Fearn and Beth-Luis-Nuin sequences. Finn tries to explain the concept of new moon to new moon and full moon to full moon to Billie, but even he is not certain as to what the artist intended the calendar in her drawing to mean. It attaches an astrological time to the Gateway event, but at the end of the novel, the actual date remains uncertain.
Ogham Hand Signals Developed by Graves from Macalister's Premise
Graves incorporated Macalister's notion of a secret sign language in his book, "the White Goddess." According to Graves, "the four sets of five letters represented fingers used in sign language. To form any one of the letters of the alphabet, one needed only to extend the appropriate amount of fingers of one hand, pointing them in one of four different directions."
This and the photo from The White Goddess, pages 114 and 115.
