Beth-birch

Beth, the birch, as the first month of the lunar calendar is symbolic of new beginnings, and purification. Just as a ritual begins with the preparation and cleansing of sacred space, so the ogham begins with Beth. It was traditional to sweep out the old year with birch branches. Birch was also said to drive out negativity and unhealthy influences. Because of the latter, it is also used for protection.

The white of its bark is the White of the Otherworld, and so it protects not only from evil, but from being abducted by the Sidhe. Because of this it was used to make cradles for children. As paradoxical as any magic, it is also an opener of doors to the Otherworld.

And as the first few of the first aicme, it is the opener of the gate to the ogham, the creation, as legend has it, of Ogma Sun-Face, god of Eloquence.

The first message written on ogham was a message written to Fionn MacCumhail on a white birch branch, and so birch is the preferred wood on which to carve ogham fews.

The Ogham, like the birch, are magic, a gateway into another world where trees are truths and an empty palm can hold all the knowledge in the world. It is a complete world view, a lense through which to look on our world with new eyes.

Scholars will rarely admit to anything more mystical than that the ogham were used in inscribing headstones. Reading the purely academic works on ogham, one could easily get the impression that there was nothing more interesting to discuss than how some unknown person came up with the order of the fews, or which Greek grammatician inspired them.

Robert Graves seems to be the instigator of the more esoteric view of the ogham, with his book The White Goddess, which is still the most quoted source on the subject. For him the ogham are a mystical alphabet given men from the hand of Goddess Herself, encompassing all knowledge and all inspiration--it is the fruit of the hazel, the flesh of the salmon, the brew of the cauldron of Cerridwen. The myths that it creates and is created by are the one inspiration, the one subject of all true poetry... He claims the right of the poet in his description, and who can argue with that?

One of the sticky particulars surrounding the ogham is whether or not the druids used them--a question to which I doubt there is an answer anymore, at least of the sort that scholar's like. As to modern druids, some do, some don't. And of those who do, the uses vary from simple writing to divination, each of which have their own arguments attached.

Another sticky point is the dating of ogham. Legend has it the druids had whole libraries of books written in ogham on wooden fans. The historians don't say much beyond the headstones and border markers on stones, except to mention the various oghams listed in the Book of Ballymote. The earliest date I have read is somewhere in the first century B.C.E. Graves and others in favor of a more mystical interpretation would claim a much older date.