The Celtic Ogham: Tree Alphabet and Divination System
Carved into standing stones across Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Isle of Man — cut into the edges of rough-hewn rock in a system so simple it looks almost like tallies, yet so precise it constitutes a complete alphabet — the Ogham script is one of the oldest written forms of any Celtic language and one of the most enigmatic writing systems in the Western world. Twenty-five characters. Each one a series of lines or notches cut across or beside a central stem. Each one named for a tree or plant. Each one carrying, within its name and its associated tree, a dense web of mythological meaning, magical correspondence, and divinatory significance that the medieval Irish scribes who wrote it down inherited from a tradition reaching back far deeper into Celtic prehistory. Ogham is an alphabet. It is also a forest. And it is, for those who learn to read it, a complete system of understanding the living world. Origins: Stone, Stick, and Myth The origins of Ogham remain disputed among sch...