originally posted in a thread at the polytheist community forum, now crossposted (with minor edits) to tumblr for the edification and interest of the irish and gaelic polytheist community.
what is ogham?
ogham is a system of writing consisting of notches attached to a central “stem” that was developed in order to write in early and old irish. its primary usage was in the form of inscriptions on stone monuments, but the letters were also carved into wood or metal as a method of sending messages or denoting ownership of an item. it is also used in mythology for magical purposes and occasionally for divination. you may also see words written in ogham as marginalia in irish texts–notes from the monks illuminating manuscripts about a variety of things, such as their mood at the time of writing or the conditions they are working in.
a marginal note that spells out latheirt, meaning “massive hangover.” irish monks go hard.
there are approximately 400 surviving monuments inscribed with ogham in ireland and parts of britain, the majority of which are in the south of ireland. outside of ireland, the largest collection is in pembrokeshire, wales.
because ogham was used mainly in monumental carving, it may be read either horizontally or vertically. on some stones, an inscription goes up vertically and continues in an unbroken line horizontally across the top of the monument. it is read vertically from bottom to top and horizontally from left to right. this means that notches found on the right side of a vertical stem are on the bottom of a horizontal stem, while left notches are found on the top.
the ogham alphabet consists of twenty main letters (also called feda or sometimes nin) and five or six additional letters, or forfeda (extra feda). you may occasionally see the ogham alphabet referred to as the beith-luis-nin, which means either “the beith-luis letters” (after the first two letters of the system, akin to “alphabet” or “futhark”), or is a shorthand for beith-luis-fearn-sail-nion (beith-lfs-nion), after the first five letters.
valar apologist 