What is Ogham? (Blog)
What is Ogham?
History and Background: First and foremost the Ogham (pronounced in the modern age as Ohm) is a multifaceted alphabet with many significant linguistic and dialect changes that can be seen in the “Lebor Ogaim”(The Book of Ogam). Its roots and development span as far back as what's considered to be of the primitive Irish and as such is considered to be the ancestors of the three contemporary Gaelic languages.
As far as who invented or developed it there is no clear distinction, but its earliest physical appearance can be dated around approximately 5th to 7th centuries AD. There also exists the popular story of the legend of Irish itself being created by Scythian king Fenius Farsa and his scholars after the Tower of Babel as what they considered to be the best of all the languages of the time, with Ogham as its writing system. The other story associated with its creation associates it with the hero Ogma (Mac Elathan) of Old Irish literature; with that there has also been attempts to relate it to the mainland Celtic god Ogmios, though the sound-correspondences between those superficially similar words don’t correlate to satisfy most Celtic language scholars.
Its uses are as historically varied as they are today with the continued enigmatic rise of neo-paganism and persistent progress and re-interpretations. When we look at the historical uses, what we are able to ascertain was its use in writing personal names, in possessor form, on the edges of standing stones (much like Rune stones), as well as memorial stones and boundary markers. There are however some references in Old Irish that mention writing Ogham on sticks to send messages, to record information, and to do magic.
The medieval-era Irish also went out and made their own stone inscriptions, based both on what had been passed down and on what had been newly created within the manuscript tradition. This made work for archaeologists and historians harder as well. Four groups of five also means that Ogham lends itself well to representation with fingers. Another interesting perspective that we can see presented with Ogham are suggestions of its use as a manual code by placing the correct amount of fingers across the shinbone, or across the bridge of the nose, and possibly even as the palm rapped against wood in different positions.The medieval manuscript scholars did a rather impressive job with the initial coding and readability of the initial four Aicme. The Lebor Ogaim (‘the Book of Ogham’), closely associated with the Auraicept na n-Éces (‘the Scholars’ Primer’), is our prime source for manuscript Ogham, and it lists nearly a hundred different graphic/glyphic ways to re-code these twenty letters: including the different forms of the Younger Futhark (long twig, short twig, rodless) and all kinds of cipher-substitutions, reversals, and inversions; along with endlessly inventive alternatives to the simple draw-some-straight lines approach. So yea, you'll want to get a copy or at least read it.
When writing or attempting to translate or transliterate words to Ogham it is imperative to understand that trying to translate back to primitive or medieval Irish is a grand undertaking and oftentimes ends in futility. The original four Aicme lacked the letter P which was added later on through the Forfeda which further muddles attempts at authenticity. The approach I've seen and that I recommend as well is to become comfortable with the aspect of re-purposing the Ogham letters to suit our spoken languages.
It is also worth noting that the spiritual side of Ogham goes almost as far as the known development of Ogham. We see this with the names of the letters being named for trees, both Fid-singular and Feda- plural mean tree/trees are related to the English “wood”, Cornish gwedh, and Breton gwez . All words for tree. Some of the Feda came organically to be named by trees, but not all of them were; that is until a manuscript creator had their way with shenanigans and renamed all the Aicme to reflect the original tree named Feda. and that's where the historically recorded spiritual part kind of fizzles out for us.
But just as innovation and inspiration drives forward, to find the divine and spiritual nature of Ogham we need to look no further than the peoples who used Ogham. Across the six Celtic nations, and namely in Ireland, Scotland, and Breton of the period we know from record history, myths and folk magic practices that Ogham and other methods were used by those called druids, the Spae workers, and the multitudes of other skilled practitioners working with the Fae, the dead, and the Gods/Goddesses.For how it pertains to us; we will be focused, just as we brought light to the agency of the Runes, on doing so in a similar fashion with the Ogham, complete with all the same types of information presented in an accessible style with ample space to take notes and breaks as you dive into what exactly a relationship with the Ogham can look like.
Sources and citations for the Ogham Grove are from here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TfOVX1WfSe6WRQxB_df27wUVSu1PlI2arPzfEis_1PY/