Damian McManus, An Sagart, Maynooth, 1991
The author has presented a detailed consideration of the state of the study of this fascinating subject. He introduces the alphabet and its twenty original characters stating that the supplementary forfeda, "Were designed with the Latin and Greek alphabets in mind." (p. 2) He quotes the description in the AURAICEPT NA NECES indicating,
That although the alphabet is almost invariably written horizontally (from left to right) in the manuscripts this account would appear to describe a vertically disposed Ogam. (p. 3)
He mentions that whereas usually the source of a borrowed alphabet is clearly evident, such is not the case with ogam. "The signary, for example, is not an evolved or derived form of any known alphabetic script." (p. 5)
He challenges disparaging assessments of ogam. He outlines some theories as to its origin, referring to: manual gestures, runes, tally sticks, cryptic and telegraphic aspects of this consideration. One telling point is,
In its most dignified role as a monument script, moreover, Ogam can scarcely be described as cryptic since this would defeat the purpose of the inscription and the accompanying Latin on the British stones would make nonsense of any such contention. (p. 15)
One interesting assertion is, "Tallies have been employed almost universally since paleolithic times." (p. 11)
He challenges the current common concept of the meanings of a number of the letter names. For example, he sees ruis as, "Red," tinne as "Strong," muin as, "Neck," nin as, "Fork," etc. (pp. 36-38). He refers the reader to previous work he has done on the letter names. There is some interesting material in this third chapter on various ideas on the origin of the ogam. Perhaps the most humourous of these is,
Meyer (1917), for example, has Ogam as the creation of a Celtic trio whose names happened to contain identical vowel sequences and were chosen to dictate the consonant arrangement; he identifies them, predictably, as Balovuseni, Hadotuceqi and Magonguzeri!. (p. 26)
There was also Richardson who in 1943 posited the origin of the word ogam in the Greek letter agma, "The alphabet being named after the peculiarity that it alone had a distinctive symbol for the sound." (p. 29)
He mentions some of the problems with letters that represent sounds that may have shifted in the language, as those represented by Q and H. On page 36 he suggests that H may have been consonantal Y. He mentions that the characters Huath, Ngetal and Straiph, "Are not reliably attested at all," in the inscriptions. (p. 33) He advises, "The reader unfamiliar with the nature of the Irish manuscript tradition," that,
The texts will usually have been subjected to varying degrees of revision, modernization and corruption and it is one of the editor's tasks to undo the changes brought about during a considerable period of transmission in order to establish the 'original' text. (p. 32)
Chapter Four introduces the inscriptions. While these, "Have been found in most counties of Ireland, in Wales, Devon, Cornwall and the Isle of Man" (p. 44), they are concentrated largely, "In the southern counties of Kerry, Cork and Waterford." (p. 45)
The condition of the inscriptions ranges along a scale from perfect preservation to virtual complete illegibility and a high percentage of them is defective in one way or another, a fact which makes the Ogam record a notoriously difficult one to work with. (p. 47)
The author expresses doubt as to the identification of any of the individuals named on the stones with those known elsewhere, with the exception of a, "King of Dyfed, who died in the middle of the sixth century." (p. 52) He mentions crosses on some of the Ogam stones. He considers the debate as to the religion of the Ogamists, concluding,
The witch-hunt for MUCOI formulae, the disinfecting of perfidious inscriptions with Christian symbolism and the general aversion to Ogam as an embodiment of a pagan past all make colourful, not to say sensational, reading but are probably as divorced from reality as is the impression to which the give rise, that of Christianity and its literary vehicle, the Latin alphabet, supplanting a pagan writing system. (p. 60)
He provides deductions from the inscriptions, often Ogam and Latin, on stones in Britain, for example, that they confirm the presence of Irish colonists there and the inclination of such colonists to conformity with the ways of the land.
Chapter Five considers the dating of the inscriptions. Right off the bat he writes:
For the Irish inscriptions we do not have a single secure anchor point at an archaeological, palaeographical, historical or linguistic level. Absolute dating is beyond our reach as the identity of the people commemorated on the inscriptions is unknown. (p. 78)
He considers several means of attempting to estimate dates, including formulae and the presence of crosses.
As inscriptions are contemporary documents and have not suffered at the hands of a modernizing scribal tradition, as have our manuscript sources..., the latest spelling on any given stone may be considered decisive as to the relative date of writing, and late spellings of formula words are particularly significant as these show most resistence to change. (p. 83)
He then considers various periods of Irish linguistic history and various developments and changes of the language. He concludes,
Owing to the fragmentary nature of many inscriptions it is impossible to give exact figures but the bulk appear to belong to the Late Primitive Irish period with a substantial but decreasing proportion in Archaic Irish and a very small number in Early Old Irish. (p. 96)
Latin palaeography has provided a, "Mid-fifth to mid-sixth century," (p. 97) dating for most Latin inscriptions accompanying ogams in Britain.
Chapter Six takes a look at Irish names. "The Ogam inscriptions also constitute our earliest corpus of personal and tribal names." (p. 101) He considers the names in three broad categories and subdivides these. This allows him to make such observations as, "In initial position divine names are relatively common," (p. 103) for the category of, "Compounded dithematic names." (p. 101) The chapter includes comments on orthography during a period of, "Enormous changes taking place in the language." (p. 127) He looks at, "Tribal and sept or kindred names" (p. 110) and remarks,
Some of the above stones are found in areas corresponding more or less to the location of the relevant tribe or sept in later records. (p. 111)
With Chapter Seven he begins a consideration of scholastic ogams. He mentions the die dated to the second century by Raftery which may have five represented by, "The third character of the Ogham alphabet (viz. V) with its Roman numerical value." (p. 129) He examines several scholastic ogams on stones up to the 19th Century. And he looks at other uses, including manuscripts.
The main body of manuscript Ogams is to be found in three Irish texts which deal in part or exclusively with Ogam, viz. AURAICEPT NA NECES 'The Scholars' Primer', DE DUILIB FEDA NA FORFID, a short tract dealing with the values of the supplementary characters, and IN LEBOR OGAIM 'The Book of Ogam' or 'The Ogam Tract.' (p. 137)
This last has a lot of variant alphabets that, "Have all the appearance of being the creations of idle schoolboys." (p. 138) He considers some of these. He proceeds to an examination of the forfeda in the three sources.
Chapter Eight looks at medieval theories and at ogam in Irish literature. It mentions the myth of Fenius Farsaid. It reminds the reader that the myth agrees with modern scholarship on the point, "That Ogam was a once-off creation, not the result of an evolution over a period of time." (p. 149) He proceeds to the alternate myth of Ogma mac Elathan and the reference in "The Book of Ogam" to the letter names coming from trees. He mentions Lucian's account of Ogmios. Here McManus is cautious.
Unfortunately we know too little about both Ogma mac Elathan and Ogmios to allow for certainty of identification but it is difficult to keep them apart, though there are some linguistic problems in the equation and in the relation of both names to the word ogam. (p. 152)
As to the sagas,
The most frequently occurring single type of reference to Ogam is one which ties in nicely with what IS KNOWN to have been its principal use, i.e. as a vehicle for memorial inscriptions. (p. 154)
He then mentions other uses of ogam in the sagas, such as Cu Chulainn's delay of the army, the druid Dallan's location of Etain and Bran's recording of his adventures. As to an association of ogam to magic, he writes,
the superstitious belief in the magical powers of writing is a universal phenomenon and is particularly prevalent in societies in which literacy is the prerogative of the few. (p. 163)
He turns to the legal aspect, "To Ogam inscriptions on stone as evidence of title to land." (p. 163)
One must asume that in such a case the occupier's or claimant's right was confirmed by his demonstrating that the name recorded on the stone was that of one of his kinsmen or ancestors. (pp. 164-165)
The book contains two appendices, kennings on the letter names (pp. 42-43) and comments on additions to Macalister's CORPUS of inscriptions. (pp. 65-77)
This is an interesting book on a fascinating topic. For a manual of divination, I still resonate most in tune with Edred Thorsson's THE BOOK OF OGHAM. However, for a glimpse at the natural range of diverse human opinions when the scholarly mind is confronted with, "The intractable nature of so many features of the subject" (p. xi), and a good exposure to the details of ogams on monuments and in manuscripts this is well worth the read.