veritywhitethorn
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 15:55:16 GMT -6
Post by veritywhitethorn on Feb 19, 2015 15:55:16 GMT -6
So there must be a few of us who study and work with the Ogams - perhaps we could have a thread to talk about them? Maybe a weekly discussion on the fews one by one, or just general discussion works too, sharing resources and UPG? I currently use the following books: The Book of Ogham by Michael Kelly and Ogham: The Secret Language of the Druids by Robert Ellison. I also have a copy of The Ogham Roads by Michael Kelly but I am trying to get a firmer understanding of the ogam basics before I go venturing along those roads. I have found Living Library Blog useful for Ogams as well—there's a two part series on each of the fews, fairly heavily based in crann ogam because that's how the author of the blog prefers to work with them, but providing some useful insights. Looking forward to to learning more!
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Ciar Lionheart
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Post by Ciar Lionheart on Feb 19, 2015 16:15:15 GMT -6
Hah. I was actually planning to start a thread for exactly this purpose where I was going to post a whole big pile of information and resources, because you're the third person to bring it up in the last day (the other two PMed me for info). I might still start a thread as a resource page (it's good to have your info organized), but it's useful to have discussion as well.
I gotta say, though, I looked up those books you referenced and I find myself highly skeptical, just based on their descriptions... Are they actually any good? They don't sound like they're particularly... historical, tbh.
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veritywhitethorn
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 16:39:12 GMT -6
Post by veritywhitethorn on Feb 19, 2015 16:39:12 GMT -6
Well, they are much better than the regular tree Ogham/celtic tree calendar!!!!111!/neowiccan stuff, which is what I started with.
The Ellison one is worth being a bit more skeptical of in terms of his own interpretation of the fews, and in my opinion he leans a bit too heavily on tree-related information from non-Celtic cultures—but on the other hand it includes the entire list of different types of oghams (with illustrations) from the Book of Ballymote, along with all the kennings for the basic Ogams (Mac ind Óic, Cuchulainn, Fenius Farsaidh etc).
The Book of Ogham is similar (but doesn't have the full listing from the Book of Ballymote, just basic kennings/associations including bird, tree, colour, deities/heroes etc. There is also an interesting discussion of the 'Celtic' (I guess he means irish, but I'm not really able to say) view of the soul (delbh, cuimhne, anál, púca/scál etc—pls excuse typos, I'm doingg this off the top of my head), which I would like to know more about but am not sure which specific primary sources Kelly has used to source this information. I can copy out more specifics a bit later if you like.
Both books present information from McManus and ?? I( can't remember the other guy's name) who have done work on the meaning of the original ogam names (eg tinne = bar of metal/iron; duir = oak tree; luis = flame/radiance etc). I have found both books incredibly helpful considering where I started (which is basically with a whole bunch of made up crap) but as always, I am happy to learn more and better. I'd love to find out about your resources Ciar!
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Ciar Lionheart
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 16:57:10 GMT -6
Post by Ciar Lionheart on Feb 19, 2015 16:57:10 GMT -6
I'm a bit confused by what you mean by "different types of oghams"—do you mean the different letters? Ogham is the name of the writing system (comparable to "runes" or "alphabet"), the individual letters are just letters (or fews, I guess, but I'm only seeing that as a term on weird pagan sites, that's not a historical name). I've also never heard of ogham having "deity/hero" associations, or bird or colour associations either for that matter. Any chance you could elaborate on that a bit? My first inclination is to say it's probably a modern invention. Those do sound like Irish terms, yeah. It's definitely Irish morphology. I'm sort of wary of any book that doesn't bother to distinguish which Celtic culture/language it's talking about haha. That's usually a bad sign. A lot of what I've done with ogham is derived from McManus's translations (I have a pdf copy of his Guide to Ogam, courtesy of Echtrai, though I haven't read the whole thing yet—I tend to skim for whatever I need). Strange as it sounds, I've also found the Wikipedia pages on ogham, the bríatharogam, and the individual letters extremely useful (they draw significantly from a different McManus book). I tend to steer clear of books that deal with The Spiritual Side Of Ogham, as I've never found one that wasn't at least moderately padded with neowiccan fluffery. I like academic resources, but obviously those aren't... super accessible. I'm gonna write up my big post, or at least start on it, and it will probably do a much better job of explaining how I do things haha. Sit tight!
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veritywhitethorn
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 17:03:37 GMT -6
Post by veritywhitethorn on Feb 19, 2015 17:03:37 GMT -6
I probably haven't done a very good job of explaining what I mean... I'll see if I can copy out some passages to try and clarify, a little later, particularly from Ellison. Do you know, I actually hadn't even thought of checking Wikipedia for ogam? I shall definitely do that.
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Ciar Lionheart
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 17:05:05 GMT -6
Post by Ciar Lionheart on Feb 19, 2015 17:05:05 GMT -6
That would be great, I'd like to see what your books have got!
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veritywhitethorn
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 17:13:18 GMT -6
Post by veritywhitethorn on Feb 19, 2015 17:13:18 GMT -6
Ok, just quickly, an excerpt from Ellison's chapter 'The Uses of Oghams': "B. Secret Writing Oghams There are a few references in the tales of the ogham being used as a form of secret writing. In the first, supposed to be the first message written in ogham, a message was written on a birch rod consisting of seven individual strokes. This was the letter ‘B’ written seven times. This story is sometimes told with seven birch branches being used. This message was for Lugh and he interpreted it to mean that his wife would be carried off seven times into the Sidhe mounds unless she was protected by birch. [1] [1] Calder, George (ed). Auraicept Na N- Éces: The Scholars Primer. Four Courts Press, Portland, OR. 1995. ISBN 1851821813. Page 91. Another tale, found in the Táin Bó Cuailnge , the Cattle Raid of Cooley, tells of Cúchulainn, an Irish hero, leaving a hoop formed from an oak sapling on top of a standing stone as a warning for the army of Connacht. On the hoop he had carved letters in ogham. None of the army could understand the meaning until Fergus mac Róich found it. Fergus, who was a Druid with the army, interpreted it to mean that the army could not pass unless there was someone with the army that could duplicate Cúchulainn’s feats, other than Fergus. Within the Primer, there are 43 types of oghams used for secret writing. I will be describing these oghams in further detail in Chapter 4. C. Cipher or Code Oghams There are three of the “other oghams” that are specifically referred to as “cipher oghams,” oghams used to hide the meaning of the message. They are 1) Head in Bush or Persisting Ogham (#25) – these numbers refer to the numbering system used in Chapter 3). 2) Head Under Bush Ogham (#26) and 3) Serpent About Head Ogham (#27). Along with these oghams, specifically called “cipher oghams,” another 38 oghams are used as ciphers in that the order of the letters is changed in different ways. I differentiate between cipher oghams and secret writing oghams by the way the letters are formed. If they are using normal fews but changing the order of the letters or adding in extra letters, then I consider it a cipher ogham. If they are using different marks for the fews, then I consider it a secret writing ogham. These oghams will be described in further detail in Chapter 4 on the other oghams. D. Mnemonic Lists To Memorize Important Information Included in the “other oghams” are eleven types of oghams where the names of important things or people were used for each letter. For example, in the River Pool Ogham (#2) each letter is symbolized by the name of a famous river pool – B = Barrow & L = Lower Shannon, etc. In the Bird Ogham (#4) each letter is symbolized by a type of bird – B = besan ( pheasant) & L = lachu ( duck), etc." I was getting myself confused regarding uses and types, I think. Does this help? (Ok now I really need to get myself off the internet for a bit and do some othe stuff! But it's just so exciting to have people to talk to about this!! )
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 21:41:53 GMT -6
Post by Allec on Feb 19, 2015 21:41:53 GMT -6
Damian McManus did write a lot about Ogham, though I unfortunately haven't read much of his work outside of his article "Irish letter-names and their kennings" from Eríu. The article is up on JSTOR, but the Wikipedia article on Bríatharogam (Ogham Kennings) is basically all that you need to know unless you want to know the bitty-gritty of the linguistics jargon most of his article includes. He wrote two books, which I'm told are equally full of jargon, but I still have them on my wishlists: The Ogam Stones at University College Cork and Guide to Ogam. The latter is over $200, soooo I don't suspect I'll be getting it anytime soon >.>; Anyway. I've studied under both the Wikipedia page article as well as help from Ciar Lionheart. I read the article by McManus best to my ability, but again so much linguistic jargon...but I did save the part where he writes out the kennings for the Ogham letters in both English and Irish. I can attach the documents, but the Wikipedia article also has them accurately listed.
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Ciar Lionheart
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 22:21:23 GMT -6
Allec likes this
Post by Ciar Lionheart on Feb 19, 2015 22:21:23 GMT -6
Allec, I have a pdf copy of Guide to Ogam, I can send you that. Popping in to say my giant ogham thread is up and complete (for now), and stickied even, thank you Allec. I figure we should keep discussion here so that we can add new posts to the resource thread without them getting drowned out by chatter.
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 22:24:08 GMT -6
Post by Allec on Feb 19, 2015 22:24:08 GMT -6
YES PLEASE DO SEND
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Ogams
Feb 19, 2015 22:27:05 GMT -6
Post by Allec on Feb 19, 2015 22:27:05 GMT -6
Oh, to also add to the discussion, I've gone a-typical with my route and made Ogham Dice! I would post more on how that works...but I'm still learning myself haha.
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Echtrai
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Post by Echtrai on Feb 20, 2015 2:17:47 GMT -6
The "different kinds of ogams" is from Auraicept na N-Éces - The Scholar's Primer, which is a writing claimed to be from the 7th century, but is found in things like the books of Leinster and Ballymote - so it most certainly had things added to it between then and the authoring of the manuscripts. The Royal Irish Academy has it digitized here: www.isos.dias.ie/english/index.html (Go to MS 23 P 12 in the Royal Irish Academy's collection, then go to page 170. I mean not that I can read it, haha, but it's cool to look at the manuscript). Mary Jones has a 1917 translation of the Ogham Tract part of it here: www.maryjones.us/ctexts/ogham.html
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veritywhitethorn
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Ogams
Feb 20, 2015 4:31:29 GMT -6
Post by veritywhitethorn on Feb 20, 2015 4:31:29 GMT -6
Ogham dice Allec? Sounds interesting! I made my own very simple set of staves from some oak twigs I collected at a local park. They're not very fancy but they're functional (I do wish I had woodworking skills of any kind!) Ciar Lionheart thank you SO much for the resource thread, it looks simply wonderful! It's really made me think about the kinds of questions I can ask to look deeper into the possible meanings of the fews and their kennings. If I may share one thing that I have felt with my own study of the Ogam—at least, this is true for the first aicme, which is the one I'm most familiar with at present—is that there seems to be a kind of rise and fall of energy, a flow leading from letter to letter. So, to take the first aicme, you have that burst of energy and new beginnings with Beith, leading upwards to the brightness and insightfulness of Luis—fire as light— then you are drawn down into the roots of the issues with Fern—fire (alder) as protection against water—you rise up again and out with Saille, to be carried along like willow leaves on water, you've got that mastery now, you can trust in that flow—and you reach the clarity of Nion/Nin at the end of the first cycle. With The next aicme you then move on to the next cycle, which is harder and more challenging: the fear and horror of hÚath, the need for strength and steadfastness of Duir, leading to balanced mastery of Tinne (and that's as far as I've got with an in depth look, for the moment...). Oh dear, does this make any sense or sound legit to anyone other than me, I feel kind of embarrassed
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Windy
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Post by Windy on Feb 20, 2015 9:28:26 GMT -6
That's actually a really fascinating idea!
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Ogams
Feb 20, 2015 15:48:38 GMT -6
Post by Allec on Feb 20, 2015 15:48:38 GMT -6
veritywhitethorn - I have some woodworking skills! I just didn't when I made the dice. I may offer people of this thread Ogham Staves if I can find materials to make them out of. We'll see :3 As to your idea... That is really fascinating! I see where you're getting that, too.
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