Fern, Third Fid Of The Ogham: Tree Of Shelter

May I stand
As an island on the marsh
As a hill on the plain
As a tree on the fairy hill
As a star in the moon’s waning
As a still sword in the hand
As a child beloved of its ancestors
Bright sights in my eyes
Brave before the host
-From ‘The Poem Book Of the Gael’, attributed to Fionn Mac Cumhaill





Botanical names:Alnus glutinosa
Family: Betula
Ogham: Fearn
Scots Gaelic: feàrna
Irish Gaelic: fearnóg
Welsh: gwern

Message: Protect those who are in need.


It seems odd at first glance that the Alder is known as areich fein, ‘shield of the warrior’. But if you were to cut into an alder branch, if you were to watch the white wood redden to the color of blood, you would understand the lesson the Alder has to teach: a true warrior is not fierce, unless those they protect are threatened. They are not fighters. They are defenders.



The Alder has been named as the tree of defenders since ancient days. In the beginning of things the hero of Wales, the great poet-warrior Gwydion, stole the three sources of civilization from Arawn, Lord of Death himself, who had jealously guarded them.(1) The wheat sheaf that gave the knowledge of farming, the hound whelp that granted the knowledge of animal husbandry and the white deer that gave knowledge of woodcraft were brought into the living world and given to humanity, and this sent Arawn into a rage. He rose up in his wrath, ready to lay waste to the entire world and make of it a desert. To keep him out of the living world and defend life itself from annihilation, Gwydion enlisted all the living trees of the wood to be his army and battle against Death beside him. Alder was one of the first to answer the call:

Gwern blaen llin,
A want gysseuin
Helyc a cherdin
Buant hwyr yr vydin.


Alder, front of the line,
formed the vanguard
Willow and Rowan
were late to the fray.


(2)
Gwydion chose to carry Alder as his standard, and in the battle could be recognized by the gleaming branches he bore. That day, he defended life using two sets of weapons: the weapons of the battle field and the weapons of the clever mind. And with the help of the trees, he rode to victory that day. By the strength of the trees, Death was driven back and Life was defended.
In the home and the hearth, Alder wood is the wood of protection and resistance to evil influences. Liking water and extremely resistant to decay, alder trees were planted to create natural protections on the banks of dikes and water courses, and alder wood was used in any place where wood would be under constant attack and need strength:in the water wheels that ground the people’s grain, in bowls and utensils for the kitchen, in the pilings of docks and the making of boats and fishing gear.(3) Alder twigs were woven into fish traps called weirs, and wooden cobbles for roads were made from alder timber.(4) All milk was contained in Alder churns in Wales and southern Ireland, keeping it fresh longer due to its antiseptic properties, protecting the household from financial loss and from illness in a place and time when milk was an integral staple. (5)


Alder is also a stauncher of wounds: its boiled bark could be used to wash and staunch the blood of deep wounds. (6)


Symbolically, alder is the tree of the defender. The defender does not seek battle, but they will not let injustice run rampant. Laurie sums it up best: ‘ The warrior protects what is loved, and the container protects what is held within it’. (7)
When the Alder speaks, this is what they say:
“You are strong today. Defend those who are weak when you are strong. Take up your weapon in the defense of those in need, whatever your weapon is. Raise your hand, raise your voice, raise your pen to quell evil and defend the folk. The people around you are your tribe, and you must care for them as they care for you.That is your duty.”





References


1: The poem-book of Gael: Translations from Irish Gaelic poetry into English prose and verse
by Hull, Eleanor. Published Chatto And Windus, 1912

2.Ford, Patrick K. The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977

3, 4.A Druid’s Herbal Of Sacred Tree Medicine, Hopman, Ellen, Destiny Books 1994


5. Laurie, Erynn Rowan, Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, 2007 Megalithica Books


6.A Druid’s Herbal Of Sacred Tree Medicine, Hopman, Ellen, Destiny Books 1994



7.Laurie, Erynn Rowan, Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, 2007 Megalithica Books

Lus, Second Fid Of The Ogham: Rowan, Tree Of Blessing

Ith, blicht, síth, sáma sona,
lína lána, lerthola,
fir ríglaich, co combáid cind
dirmaig forráin

Corn, milk, peace, happy ease,
full nets, ocean’s plenty,
Men of worth, amity among chieftains

-The Dindshenchas of Carmun, 11th century





Botanical Name: Sorbus
Family: Rosaceae
Ogham: Lus
Scots Gaelic: Caorann
Irish Gaelic :Caorthann
Welsh: Criafol

Message: Walk forward confident in the knowledge that you are part of the pattern. Disharmony is only a passing thing. It cannot touch you.

Lie down beneath a rowan tree and look up between the branches. Breathe. Watch green and gold leaf shadows spangling the grass around the trunk. Watch the red berries gleaming in the sun, nibbled at by flitting birds. Breathe in the smell of green things growing. And that’s when you realize one thing:
Life is good.
The Rowan tree is the physical embodiment of this sense of perfect well being. Sometimes the tree looks so perfect, so beautiful, that it’s hard to believe it’s real.
Perhaps it truly isn’t of this world, the rowan tree. In the Tale of the Wood of Dubhros, it’s written that the Tuatha De Danann brought the first rowan berries into the world of men.

‘‘Now the provision the Men of Danu had brought with


them from the Land of Promise was crimson nuts, and


apples, and sweet-smelling rowan berries. And as they


were passing through the district of Ui Fiachrach by


the Muaidh, a berry of the rowan tree fell from them,


and a young tree grew up from it. And there was virtue in its


berries, and no sickness or disease would ever come on


any person that would eat them, and those that would


eat them would feel the liveliness of wine and the


satisfaction of mead in them, and any old person of a


hundred years that would eat them would go back to


be young again, and any young girl that would eat them


would grow to be a flower of beauty.’ (1)



The rowan tree holds this virtue today, and in its presence no discord and no obstacle can last.

Some say it was the lady Brighid herself who dropped the berry that birthed the first Rowan tree( 2) and indeed, the Rowan is sacred to the Lady of the hearth and the smithy, her gift to mankind. The sheer wholesome vitality of rowan is enough to fight off unclean things; rowan berries are tucked in pockets to ward off mischief, untruth and ill intent on the part of man and spirit (3), rowan wood is hung over a cradle to ensure the child is not influenced by evil (4) and rowan berries on the door and window lintels of a home protect against bane and blight entering. Rowan was used in all the great Fire Festivals of the Irish: at Imbolg its red berries were soaked in cream and fed to children and domestic animals to strengthen them, at Beltane Rowan was burned to bless the fertility of the coming harvest and ward off all bane or blight, and as the night closed in on Samhain it was equal armed rowan-wood crosses tied with red thread that protected the folk from the forces of the dark. (4)


When warding off disease, discord and evil, there is no better tree to turn to than the rowan. In the dark and terrible days of winter in Northern Europe, tisanes, jams and meads made with rowan berries kept the folk healthy, providing essential supplements of vitamin A and C to ward off scurvy, rickets and compromised immune systems that led to winter ills. To eat the rowan berries in the dark time of year was ‘to eat a mouthful of Midsummer.’ (5)
Rowan is the tree that burns brightest, and we call on it when we most need light. When you look up into the Rowan’s fine leaves dappled with sunlight, watch light glint from its carmine berries, you can almost hear it speak. ‘Life is beautiful’ the rowan says in words of dappled light and color, ‘open your eyes and see it.’ Its fid in the ogam, ‘Lus’, means ‘flame’ or ‘radiance’ (6) and in its supple limbs and burning red berries is the pure fire of life. In the light of that fire, all impurity is burned away and all obstacles are shown to be lessons to help you become greater.


When the rowan is with you, it is time to step out boldly in the certain knowledge that you are part of a perfect pattern, all things in their place and all things blessed.





References


1-Lady Gregory, Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of Tuatha de Danann and of the Fianna of Ireland. Harvard Press 1905

2-A Druid’s Herbal Of Sacred Tree Medicine, Hopman, Ellen, Destiny Books 1994

3-Laurie, Erynn Rowan, Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, 2007 Megalithica Books


4-Freeman, Mara, Kindling the Celtic Spirit, 2000 HarperCollins Publishers

5-Carmichael, Alexander (ed.), Ortha nan Gàidheal: Carmina Gadelica, Edinburgh Press 2006

6-Laurie, Erynn Rowan, Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, 2007 Megalithica Books

Beith, First Fid of the Ogham:Tree of Beginnings

Air gach por a bha ’n an suain,

Bho na thainig fuachd gun bhaigh

Friamhaichidh gach por ’s an uir



Every seed that lay in sleep

Since the coming of cold without mercy

Every seed will take root in the earth


-An Coisrigeadh Sioil, the Carmina Gadelica






Botanical names: Betula pendula, local American species Betula papyifera
Family: Betula
Ogham: Beith
Scots Gaelic: Bher
Irish Gaelic: Beith
Welsh: Bedwyn



Message:Make a beginning.

To begin a thing is to change. Change frightens humanity; we’ve always preferred the world to stay predictable, routine, safely ordered as a rule.
A seed is safe and predictable. It is ordered. But it is not alive until it breaks its shell. It is not alive until it begins to try something new.



It’s said in the Book of Ballymote that Ogham itself began when the one it is named for, Ogma, cut into a birch twig and made a mark to be a message. The story is told in a series of questions and answers,

Whence the Ogham got its name according to sound and matter?
Who are the father and the mother of the Ogham?
By whom it was written?
Not hard
Ogham is for Ogma in respect to its sound.
According to matter, ogum is og-uaini, perfect alliteration, which the poets applied to poetry

The father of Ogham is Ogma, the mother of Ogham is his blade.
(1)

That first mark made by Ogma’s blade, we’re told, was the fid of beith, the beginning. The birch tree bears this mark well; in spring, the hints of bright viridian in its canopy are the first sign of spring, welcome in eyes hungry for color after the dark. In the claw of the Robin, so Welsh legend tells us, a birch branch is used to kill the soul of Winter in its shape of a Wren and free the world from the cold.(2)

In ecological terms, the Birch is known as a pioneer tree. (3) In ground that has been decimated by fire or human action, land that would kill an oak, you will see the valor of birch saplings. Slender, fragile, they raise their branches to the sky and whisper to the wind, ‘We will grow. We will be a forest some day. We are not afraid.’

Beginnings have always frightened humanity. Beginnings and births are perilous, a time of uncertainty as well as joy. Over the years, the Birch, slender and white, has come to be the protector of beginnings to the peoples of Northern Europe. Birch branches were hung over the beds of women in labor in Ireland, and in Scotland birch-timber cradles protected the new and uncertain lives of infants. In Scandanavia birch beer was drunk as a spring tonic, and in Wales new couples kissed-and more- under birch boughs to strengthen their union.(4) At Beltane all across Europe, a birch pole or young birch tree became the Maypole, heralding the new Summer and blessing the beginning of all things that Summer would bring.(5)


It’s this cheerful valor that the Birch tree offers us. “Come on, give it a try.” it says in the whisper of wind between its bright leaves, “The worst you can do is learn something new in the trying. You’ll be afraid, but don’t let that stop you.”

So many of us let our fears hold us back from trying something new, beginning a venture, taking a plunge. We say ‘I’ll wait until I’m good enough’, ‘I have bills to pay’, ‘I’m not really ready’. We say ‘I’ll try later’ But at the root of all these excuses is the cold little truth. “I’m scared. I think I’ll fail. I don’t want to be a failure.”
Dig out that root like you’d dig out a weed, and let the Birch tree grow in its place.This is what it will tell you: sometimes, you are going to make mistakes. Making mistakes is the nature of learning. It is not the nature of failure. The nature of failure is cowardice. You only fail when you stop trying.

Starting something new is terrifying. But do as the Birch does:Take a deep breath. Stand quiet and tall. Raise your head up, look forward, and begin.

References


1 Auraicept na n-éces : the scholars' primer; being the texts of the Ogham tract from the Book of Ballymote and the Yellow book of Lecan, and the text of the Trefhocul from the Book of Leinster
Calder, George, 1859-1941; Virgilius Maro, Grammaticus, 7th cent; Isidore, of Seville, Saint, d. 636. Published 1917. Public domain





2 A Druid’s Herbal Of Sacred Tree Medicine, Hopman, Ellen, Destiny Books 1994





3 "Silver birch: Betula pendula". Forestry Commission, http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-5NLDXL


(4)Laurie, Erynn Rowan, Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, 2007 Megalithica Books





(5) Whispers From The Woods: The Lore And Magic Of Trees , Kynes, Sandra. Llewellyn Books 2005

First Step On A Journey

I arise today through the strength of Life
Light of sun, radiance of moon
Splendor of fire, speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind, depth of the sea
Stability of earth, firmness of rock

Today, I will arise

-The Deer's Cry, From the Yellow Book of Lecan

Today, I begin an artistic and scholarly journey, and I'd like to welcome you along for company on the road. I'm working on deepening and expanding my rapport with my ancestral past and the living world around me, by studying the lore and magic of plants and trees. I'll begin with the ancient Irish writing system of Ogham and work my way through history from there. Think of what I'm posting as working rough drafts. I'd love advice, thoughts, corrections on any of my mistakes, comments and ideas. If you know poems or stories about the plants mentioned, I'd love to see them! I'd like to have a conversation around the themes that come up that we can all benefit and learn from.



For those who haven't encountered it before, the Ogham is the ancient Irish writing system. One long line was inscribed downwards, often on the edge of a square-cut stone, and small lines that created letters or 'fid' were drawn across the central stave. The ogham isn't always about trees; assigning the letters a tree or other attribute was a mnemonic device, the way we teach kids 'a is for apple, b is for ball' until the letters are easy for them to remember. Some letters were mainly about something else-a flame or a bar of iron, for instance- and only had a tree associated with them. But the tree associations resonate with me, so I choose to work with them.
It'll be an interesting journey. You're welcome on the road.