Ogham Divination with Staves: The Irish Tree Alphabet

Ogham is the earliest writing of Ireland: an alphabet of strokes cut across or beside a central line, first carved on standing stones in the fourth to sixth centuries. Medieval Irish scholars treasured it as a learned script, gave each letter a name, often of a tree, and compiled riddling "kennings" for each. Modern Druids and Celtic revivalists use a set of twenty marked staves to draw letters in answer to a question. This entry explains how, and separates the medieval tradition from the modern tree calendar that often accompanies it.

How to do it§

1. Know the letters. The twenty ogham letters (feda) fall into four groups (aicmí) of five. With their commonly given names, they are: beith (birch), luis, fearn (alder), sail (willow), nin; húath (whitethorn), dair (oak), tinne, coll (hazel), ceirt; muin, gort, ngétal, straif, ruis; ailm, onn, úr, edad, idad (yew). Where no tree is given, the original meaning is uncertain or not a tree; medieval tracts assign trees to all of them.
2. Make the staves. Cut twenty sticks of similar size, ideally from fallen wood. On each, draw a central line (the druim, "ridge") along its length and cut or paint one letter's strokes against it.
3. Prepare. Lay a cloth before you. Sit quietly and frame one clear question. Some practitioners open with a few words to the land, the ancestors or the gods they honour; the wording is your own.
4. Draw. Shake the bag and draw three staves without looking, or scatter all twenty on the cloth and choose three that fall closest to you or cross one another.
5. Interpret. Read each letter through its name, its tree and its medieval kennings (bríatharogam). For beith one kenning speaks of "a withered foot with fine hair" and another of "greyest of skin"; for dair the kennings are "highest of bushes" and "carpenter's work", and for muin "strongest of effort". Reflect on how these images bear on your question: the first stave as the root of the matter, the second as its course, the third as its counsel.
6. Record. Write down the question, the letters and your reading. Over time, notes deepen understanding of each letter.
7. Close. Thank the staves and return them to the bag. Keep them somewhere clean and dry.

Origins and history§

About four hundred ogham inscriptions survive, most in southern Ireland, with others in Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Cornwall. Nearly all are memorials giving a personal name and lineage, cut along the edge of a standing stone. They are usually dated between the fourth and sixth centuries CE. Scholars debate whether the alphabet was invented to write Irish on the model of Latin grammar, or for some other purpose. Damian McManus's A Guide to Ogam (1991) is the standard study.

After inscriptions fell out of use, ogham lived on in manuscripts as a learned script. The Auraicept na nÉces ("The Scholars' Primer") and the tract In Lebor Ogaim ("The Book of Ogams"), both preserved in the Book of Ballymote (c. 1390), explain the letters and list nearly a hundred variant oghams: bird ogham, colour ogham, church ogham and others. These medieval texts are the source of the tree associations, together with the three sets of kennings attributed to Morann mac Main, Mac ind Óc and Cú Chulainn. McManus argues that several letter names did not originally mean trees at all. Luis may mean "flame" or "herb", tinne "bar of metal" and muin "neck" or "trick". The tree list was partly a later scholarly scheme.

Divination with ogham-marked wood does appear in the medieval saga Tochmarc Étaíne ("The Wooing of Étaín"). There the druid Dalán cuts four wands of yew, writes oghams on them and through them discovers where Étaín has been taken. The story shows that medieval writers associated ogham with druidic knowledge. It does not describe a fixed method. The modern practice of casting twenty staves, and above all the "Celtic tree calendar" of thirteen lunar months, owes most to Robert Graves's The White Goddess (1948). Historians such as Ronald Hutton regard Graves's calendar as a poetic invention rather than an ancient system.

Variations§

Some practitioners include the five extra letters (forfeda) added in the manuscripts, making twenty-five staves. Others lay the staves on a cloth marked with the "Fionn's window" diagram from the manuscripts, or use cards instead of wood.

Safety and good sense§

Take care with knives and wood-burning tools, and collect only fallen wood or wood you have permission to cut. Do not take wood or stones from archaeological sites or protected trees. Ogham readings are an aid to reflection, not a substitute for professional advice.

Sources and further reading§

• A Guide to Ogam — Damian McManus, 1991
• Auraicept na n-Éces: The Scholars' Primer — George Calder (ed.), 1917
• Celtic Mythology — Proinsias Mac Cana, 1970
• Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain — Ronald Hutton, 2009
• The White Goddess — Robert Graves, 1948