The Bríatharogam: the Ogham letters told in riddles

“Fairest of trees”: this is how an ancient Irish master is said to have described the Ogham letter C, called coll, the hazel. It is not a botanical definition but a small poetic riddle. Formulas of this kind make up the Bríatharogam, literally the “word ogham”, a set of kennings that accompany each letter of the Irish alphabet and are preserved in medieval grammatical treatises.

Three masters, three series

The kennings are gathered in three series, each credited to a figure of tradition: Morann mac Main, a legendary judge famed for his wisdom; Mac ind Óc, that is, the god Óengus, the Young One; and Cú Chulainn, the hero of the Ulster Cycle. These attributions should not be taken as historical: they served to give authority to the series by linking them to illustrious figures of the mythical past.

The texts are found in the Auraicept na nÉces and in the treatise In Lebor Ogaim, preserved in manuscripts such as the Book of Ballymote, of the late fourteenth century, but based on older material. The language of the formulas is archaic and often obscure, so much so that medieval glossators already had to add explanations, not always convincing ones.

Some examples

For the first letter, beith, the birch, Morann's series gives “féochos foltchaín”, withered trunk with fair hair, an image that suits the pale trunk and slender branches of the tree. For luis the formula is “lí súla”, lustre of the eye, perhaps referring to the bright colour of a plant. For húath, the letter H, we read “condál cúan”, assembly of packs of hounds, an expression whose link with the name scholars still debate.

For coll, the hazel, the formula is indeed “caíniu fedaib”, fairest of trees, while for idad, the letter I, often associated with the yew, we read “siniu fedaib”, oldest of trees. The two expressions, built in the same way, show the style of the Bríatharogam: a comparative, an image, a play of sounds.

Trees or not trees

The Bríatharogam is particularly important because it helps us understand what the letter names originally meant. Medieval tradition called all the letters feda, trees, and linked many names to plants: birch, alder, willow, oak, hazel, ivy. But by comparing the oldest kennings, several scholars have concluded that not all the names were originally tree names. Some referred to other things, and the complete tree interpretation would have arisen later, for consistency with the term feda.

This point also matters when assessing modern readings. In the twentieth century, especially after Robert Graves's book The White Goddess, published in 1948, the idea spread of a druidic tree calendar based on Ogham, with one tree for each lunar month. No ancient or medieval sources document such a calendar, which should be regarded as a modern poetic construction.

The Bríatharogam thus remains a text of great fascination, for reasons other than those often attributed to it. It reveals no druidic secrets, but shows the Irish scholars' taste for the allusive word, for wordplay and for memory. Each letter became a small poem, and the alphabet a repertoire of images to be learned by heart.