Ogham
The Celtic tree oracle
For the Celtic tree alphabet, few casts, and grove lore.
Oracle / Ogham
Ogham is the early Irish alphabet cut as notches along the edge of a standing stone, read from the bottom up. Its twenty letters, the feda, fall into four families of five called aicme, and five more signs, the forfeda, were added later. Medieval scholars gave many of the letters the names of trees, which is where the tree lore of the ogham comes from.
There is no surviving rule for reading ogham as an oracle; the spreads here are modern. Draw from the twenty classical feda, or add the forfeda for the full set of twenty-five.
How to read an ogham draw
Ogham is an early medieval Irish alphabet, known from some four hundred inscribed stones of roughly the fourth to sixth centuries. Each letter, a fid (plural feda), is a group of one to five strokes cut along a central line. The twenty primary feda fall into four families of five, the aicmí, and five later letters, the forfeda, were added by medieval scholars.
What is old and what is new
Divining with ogham has a real basis in the sources. J. A. MacCulloch, summarising the Irish texts in The Religion of the Ancient Celts (1911), writes that “Ogams were also engraved on rods of yews, and from these Druids divined hidden things.” In the tale of the Wooing of Étaín, the druid Dalan uses such rods to find where the queen has been hidden. MacCulloch suggests the method “may have been that of drawing one of the rods by lot and then divining from the marks upon it.”
What no medieval text gives is a table of meanings. The meanings used in readings today are modern, drawn from the letter names, the trees associated with them, and Irish and Scottish lore. The complete tree calendar many people know was largely shaped by Robert Graves in 1948. It is a beautiful system to think with, but it is a reconstruction.
Drawing and reading
A reading follows the shape the sources describe: the feda are mixed, and one or more are drawn by lot.
- One fid answers a single question or serves as a focus for the day. It is the closest to the druid’s single rod, and the best way to learn the letters.
- Three feda can be read as past, present and future, or as situation, action and outcome.
- Five feda widen the view: the issue, the obstacle, the advice, the surrounding influences and the likely outcome.
When you read a fid, look at three things. First, its name and the tree or word behind it: birch for beginnings, oak for strength and endurance, yew for what outlasts. Second, its place in its aicme and its neighbours there. Third, how its meaning presses against the actual shape of your question. A fid rarely answers yes or no; it offers a quality to bring into the situation, or one to watch for.
Keep a method
There is no ancient rulebook for spreads, so consistency matters more than any particular choice. Pick a way of asking and a layout, keep them, and let the meanings speak against your question. Over time the feda become less like keywords and more like familiar trees.
Further reading
- Ogham Divination: Yew Rods, Irish Seers and the Modern Reading What the Irish sources say about druids divining with ogham on yew rods, the other ways early Irish seers sought hidden knowledge, and how a modern ogham reading is laid out.
- What Is Ogham? The Script, the Stones and the Trees Ogham explained: how the early Irish script works, its four aicmí and the forfeda, what the stones say, and which parts of the popular tree alphabet are old and which are modern.
Ogham on your phone
The app keeps a history of your readings, has a sign for every day and a home-screen widget, and goes further into the tradition.