The truth about Ogham

There's something I'd like to bring up and discuss. I have my own opinions about the ogham and would find it interesting to hear other people's opinions and the research that they have done into what it is, what it is used for, the meanings past and present and its validity in our spiritual practice today.

I've always found the ogham to be a beautiful resource and insight into the spiritual nature and symbolic meanings of trees, however for the most part the association of the ogham letters with trees was an invention of medieval times. Many times I have been given the impression that the ogham was an alphabet used by the Celtic Druids in magic and scripts, but this isn't actually the case. One of my favourite authors on Druidry from an academic perspective, Ronald Hutton, writes about the Ogham and the various scholarship that surrounds it and explains that at most only a few of the letters originally had an association with trees, but that this aspect was extended through popular assumption in the medieval era, long after the script had gone out of use ('Blood and Mistletoe -The History of the Druids in Britain', Ronald Hutton, 2009, p.44) What's more, the uses of the ogham were only really found in stone memorials to the dead and possibly land markers - both practical uses, and certainly not a reflection of the divinatory and magical uses we might have for them today. References to their use in divination and magic are found in mythologies, but as these were generally written down from around 1300 at the earliest, they would have been working on the same assumptions which gave the ogham more tree references. It seems that a lot of the mystical meanings of the ogham were the fancy and fantasy of people in the 1300's and 1400's. As in our time, they hoped to see the Druids of the past and their practices in a more romantic and magical way.

Being aware of this, I ask myself, "does it really matter that the ogham had no original connection with trees, divination or magic? Is it necessary that it did for it to be useful and meaningful for us today?" and really... no it doesn't matter. I am a strong believer that the longevity of a belief or its creation in the distant past does not make it more spiritual, more useful, or more authentic. What can be created today, shared by a community and used for the betterment of our lives, particularly in spiritual respects, is just as valuable as if we had come across such developments in the past. It is my opinion that it makes our practice all the more authentic to recognise that much of our present day practice with ogham has been developed well after the original formation of it as an alphabet. With every added association, with every intuition about a new tree, every letter addition to the alphabet, every new way of using the letters, we enliven the tradition and bring it greater vitality. We are creating a "living Druidry" which is developing all the time through the efforts and intuitions of many wonderful modern day people. This is an incredibly special thing. We are the Druids today possibly more than any Druids were in the past. We know what the archetype is that we hold of the wise Druid - and when we start to practice Druidry we are deciding to live that archetype. Using the ogham as a spiritual tool for magic and divination, and as a representative system of trees and thier mystical symbols is a modern Druid's work.

How do you feel about this? Agree? Disagree? Have you heard anything else about the ogham that could add to this discussion? How do you feel about Druidry being an invented tradition? How do you feel about the ogham's development over time?

I'd love to hear some other people's thoughts :-)