In Druidry there is an alphabet known as ogham (pronounced “OH-um” or sometimes as “OG-um” depending on the dialect being used). There are ogham stones in Ireland that archaeologists believe date to the 5th or 6th century CE. This means that they were created when the Druids were still around, but slowly dying out as Christianity took over the British Isles. This means that there was a 100 to 200 year overlap between the earliest known ogham stones and the last of the Druids. Did ancient Druids use the ogham? Possibly. Do modern Druids use the ogham? Certainly!
The original ogham contained twenty letters. Five more were added later, for a total of 25 letters. It is used by many modern Druids and Celtic Pagans for both communication and divination. For divination purposes, each letter of the ogham is inscribed on a rune. Each of these runes has a divinatory aspect or meaning. These runes are usually placed in a crane bag, shaken or stirred up, then drawn and laid out in various ways and interpreted. A rune constructed in this manner is called an ogham few.
Each of the 25 letters of the ogham is associated with a plant. The ogham is sometimes referred to as the Celtic Tree Alphabet, but that is somewhat misleading, as some of the plants of the ogham are not trees.
For those interested in the healing and magical properties of plants, the ogham is a great place to start. Knowing the medicinal and magical properties of the plants of the ogham would give you a good basic foundation in both herbalism and magic. Not only that, but since each letter of the ogham is associated with a plant, one Druid may leave a message for another Druid by simply arranging leaves on a string. Each leaf represents a plant of the ogham, and each plant represents a letter. Some Groves actually use this technique as a test of one’s abilities, by leaving messages for students in the form of leaves. If the students can decipher these messages, they are considered learned in the art of the ogham.
The calendar used today by many Pagans is a lunar calendar, as opposed to a solar calendar like the one used by most Western nations. This Pagan lunar calendar as used by the Black Mountain Druid Order, devised by Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess, is divided up into thirteen months of 28 days each, with one extra day left over. Since the lunar cycle is approximately 29.5 days, this method of calculating months doesn’t exactly line up with astronomical observations, but a discussion of the complexities of astronomy is beyond the scope of our purposes here. Suffice it to say that the Black Mountain Druid Order uses 13 months of 28 days each, for a total of 364 days. The one day left over constitutes our “year and a day” period, making a total of 365 days.
Each month on the Druid lunar calendar is also associated with a tree and a letter of the ogham. A horoscope can be constructed by finding the tree month of your birth, and studying the properties of that tree.
So the ogham contains a calendar, a means of divination, and a means of healing. Obviously, there is a wealth of information to be obtained from study of the ogham! For this reason, anyone wishing a good basic foundation in The Way of the Druid would go far towards accomplishing this goal by studying the ogham in depth.