Beloved Trees of the Celts

As in many, actually, most ancient belief systems, trees were highly venerated and the ancient Celts were no exception to this common thread in the theologies of the time. This seems quite logical given that the landscape of Europe and the British Isles were thickly forested in those days, and that trees provided the population with most of the necessities of life. Trees were not only useful, but pleasing to the eye and provided a living metaphor for the interconnectedness of the universe: branches in the heavens, roots deep in the earth. In addition to all this, they also seemed to be endowed with immortality! As sacred beings in their midst, trees were believed to possess personalities, attributes and powers by the Celtic peoples. In Ireland, five sacred trees are said to protect the five major divisions of the land. Even the ancient writing system, ogham, is integrally connected to trees as each character of its alphabet is said to represent a tree! As trees are, by nature, connected to the changing seasons, each tree came to be associated with a time of year and the festival celebrated at that time. There are many belief systems today which incorporate this reverence for nature into a Celtic Tree Calendar; some say it is the very calendar used by the ancient Celts. Each tree is associated with it's own fascinating legends and mythology, some of which have trickled down through the centuries as the basis for common customs of today. I'm going to do a little investigation into each tree held sacred in the Celtic tradition and share in my blog what I find as I go along. I'll also share links to web sites and book titles that I think are particularly informative. My shop, "The Nature of Things" sells shirts designed with this theme as well in its Trees as Irish Celtic Symbols section.

The Alder

The third letter of ogham is fearn, and is associated with the alder tree. The alder also stands for the fourth month of the Celtic Tree Calendar, March 13 through April 14, and holds within it the vernal equinox. This may be one underlying reason that the alder is so prominent in Celtic folklore. Its name derives from the old English, "ealdor", meaning chieftain. In fact, the red dye made from its bark was applied to the faces of real Celtic chieftains and kings during sacred ritualistic ceremonies! Faerie folk used a green dye obtained from the alder's catkins to render their clothing invisible to the human eye! The alder protected the secret places of the faeries as well, and is also said to have stood guard by surrounding the "Isle of Apples", or Avalon - the otherworld. Perhaps the alder is associated with hidden places due to its affinity for wet and boggy land where most did not venture. One of its folk names is the "king of waters". When underwater, its timber is highly resistant to saturation and actually becomes stronger. It is for this reason that the alder was highly prized for the construction of bridges, the piles being driven deeply into the earth under the water, as well as for the foundations of Venice!
But the alder also possesses a fiery nature. "The Battle Witch of the Woods" was the hottest in a fight according to the epic Celtic poem, "Battle of the Trees", in which the Celtic god, Bran, carried the branches of the alder into battle. Furthermore, although its timber makes a poor fuel, it does make an excellent charcoal which has been used to warm Celts for centuries. The alder's mystical strength lies in its ability to balance and harmonize elements of fire and water.
Practically speaking, the alder has many uses, applied by ancient as well as modern Celts. Its sticky leaves can be strewn around the house to trap fleas and other small pests (maybe this is an older application, but nonetheless, a mighty important one!). And, as long as we're on the subject of infestations, its bark can be boiled in vinegar resulting in a sort of liniment which can be applied topically to rid oneself of pesky lice and other undesirables. The alder is quite renowned for its ability to soothe inflammation, a distillate of its bark being especially effective as a gargle for sore throat. Its leaves can be used in a poultice and applied to any swelling for relief. And, if your dogs are barking (achy feet), you can slip a few alder leaves into your shoes to put the bounce back in your step! (I just might try that one!) The alder has astringent properties as well, and was popularly applied to battle and accidental wounds to stop blood flow before 911 was available. Dried powdered bark has even been used as an ingredient in toothpaste as its astringent qualities are good for the gums!
Its not hard to see why the alder has been a favorite tree of the Celts. I hope you picked up a little bit of interesting information. Check out my alder links if you'd like more in depth reading, and if you've learned to love the alder, you can get an alder tee shirt in the Trees as Irish Celtic Symbols section of my shop.

The Willow

The willow tree is symbolized by the fourth letter of the ancient ogham alphabet which is called saille. (See ogham links and 1/23/08 blog post: What the Bleep is Ogham?) There seems to be some confusion, in my mind anyway, about which time of year is associated with the willow. Some sources give February as the month of the willow and the ancient prechristian festival of Imbolc, celebrating the stirrings of spring, as its "holiday". However, most sources state April 15th through May 5th is the lunar month of the willow in the Celtic Tree Calendar, the fifth month. As such, the willow would be the tree associated with May day, or the ancient festival of Beltane and would also occur around the time of the Christian Easter. There does seem to be a thread connecting the willow to a modern custom of Easter. It seems that an ancient creation myth involves a serpent (a familiar fellow in mythology) who hid two red eggs among the branches of the willow for protection until hatching. One egg held the embryonic earth while the other housed the sun. The willow, having done its job well, witnessed the universe and all life burst forth upon their hatching. It is thought that the tradition of hiding Easter eggs at this time of year emanates from this myth! The ancient Celts associated the willow with the moon and Caileach, or the crone aspect of the triple goddess who during this month morphs into the maiden aspect. Characteristics of this goddess and the willow tree are interwoven. The willow was revered as a tree of dreaming and enchantment. Poets, priests and priestesses would meditate in its groves for inspiration and its groves were considered sacred. Beyond its mystical value, the willow has a very practical side to its nature of which the ancients were well aware. Due to their flexibility, willow branches are the material of choice for weaving baskets. In fact the word willow may be the root for the word wicker,as well as words such as witch,wicked and Wicca. It is said that the witches broom is bound with willow twigs! Nature herself provided the ancients with the essentials of life, including medicine. It turns out that our Celtic ancestors were no strangers to the benefits of modern medicine! They would brew a bitter tea from the bark of the willow and use it as an analgesic, especially for arthritic pain. They even understood that it helped reduce fevers! Turns out, salicylic acid is what made the tea bitter - the main ingredient in aspirin! There is even an old folk name for the willow - "witches' aspirin". The willow has long been associated with grief and mourning, perhaps due to the weeping nature of its branches. It is, therefore, a popular resident of the cemetery. However, its uses have been more than decorative in the past. There was a tradition of planting a willow directly above a grave site in hopes that the departed loved one's spirit would rise up into and become part of the tree, and, it was believed, attain immortality.

These are but a few of the interesting connections between the ancient Celtic willow wisdom and our lives today. Of course, that wisdom was grounded in the knowledge that life was sustainable only by nature herself. It's probably a good thing to to be reminded of that as we discover these connections. Perhaps this is why we find these ties to the past so fascinating!
If you like the willow image, you can get it on a shirt from my shop, The Nature of Things!

What the bleep is Ogham?

Just when you thought you knew everything there is to know about your Celtic background, you see some Celtic motif with Ogham written somewhere on it! Well, that little word seemed pretty obscure to me when I ran across it, but it was related to something Celtic, and being American Irish, I just had to learn more about it. If your interests run a little to the arcane, you may find Ogham (pronounced owum) to be just the thing to fire up a sleepy St.Patrick's Day party! Beware though, this could have a sedative effect depending on the crowd you run with.
As it turns out, Ogham is an alphabet used by early Celts beginning in about the fourth century C.E., although it's point of origin matches the obscurity of it's name. Even scholars (who eat this stuff for breakfast) can't really pin down whether this alphabet was based on Roman or Runic styles of writing, and the fact that it corresponds to neither Roman nor Runic letter orders really stokes the raging debate! They do agree that it was modeled on some other script form based on phonological evidence (which is beyond the scope of this little blog). This alphabet is related to Primitive Irish; a language used in the fourth to sixth centuries, but may predate the fourth century. Inscriptions available for viewing today, mostly around the Irish Sea, are on large stones but it is thought that prior to stone cutting, symbols of this alphabet were carved on more perishable items such as tree branches. It is, therefore, concluded that this alphabet was used well before the inscriptions in stone we are able to see today. These are translated mostly as names, or lineage and were most likely used as territorial boundary markers.
The Ogham alphabet is comprised of twenty feda, or characters, which are divided into aicmi, or families. Each aicme is named after the first feda in it. The characters are made with downward, upward and perpendicular strikes, and notches are used for vowels. In manuscript tradition, five more characters were added, known as the forfeda. Need a drink of water? . . . this part was a little dry! But cheer up . . . on to folklore!
I came across three seemingly distinct legends of the origin of Ogham, but on some level in the misty past they may be interrelated. One legend has it that Ogham is named after the Irish god Ogma whose crowning attribute seems to have been eloquence. Another story tells of a Scythian king by the name of Fenius Farsa who traveled to the plane of Shinar in order to study the various Languages generated at Nimrod's Tower (the Tower of Babel). Finding that the languages had largely dispersed, he sent his top scholars on worldwide journeys to investigate. With the information that was gathered, he took the best of each language and created Goidelic (Gaelic), a language of perfection. He then created Ogham as the perfect writing system to accompany it. A third legend recounts how a certain Ogma mac Elathan created this system of writing for the scholars and poets of his day. It is said that the very first message written in Ogham consisted of seven b's carved on a birch branch hence the association of the first letter of Ogham with the birch tree. All the letters of Ogham came to be associated with tree names, although only four of the twenty letters have readily recognizable tree names. In fact, the word feda used for the characters of this alphabet also means tree! By the tenth century Ogham was referred to as the Celtic Tree Alphabet and is closely associated with tree names to this day.
Many people today hold that Ogham has a mystical layer as well. Used by Druids, Ogham is said to have been a means of secret communication and divination. There are those who use forms of Ogham to this day for these purposes! Because trees were considered sacred in prechristian Celtic societies, an entire system exists assigning meaning to each tree represented by the feda of Ogham. For instance, the first letter beithe, meaning birch, is said to carry with it protective attributes. There is also a thirteen month calendar which designates each month as being governed by a tree feda.
Well, my curiosity has been sated, if only for a while. Please know that this is just an overview of my initial understanding of the obscure little word Ogham. If this has peaked your interest, have a look at the links I have provided, all of which I have visited to write this blog. You'll find a lot more information on sources like the Book of Ballymote. Or, you can just come back and visit me! There is a tremendous amount of information to explore - I just need to sit back and digest a little before I continue my treasure hunt!