Ogham’s Mystery

Secrets kept for centuries

Wound in swaying trees

In lines that stretch before me

Enduring sun and storm

Beith sprouts the bud

The letters scratched on stone

Until Emmchall’s leaves descend

To make the words upon the stem

Bones of fallen chiefs announced

The land they called their own

A life entombed in time

But for the iron strike of man

Ancient whispers rise

Reborn now to my lips

The fame that never fades

In the carving of the trees upon the stone

About this work: Ogham is an ancient alphabet created by the Gaelic people. Beith (birch) is the first letter and Emmchall (hazel twin) is the last. Each letter is said to be named after a tree and is written on a stem line. The carvings were often the names of the dead or pronouncements of the land they owned. Written at a time when language and poetry were considered to have magical qualities, there are ancient names that only survive because of an Ogham engraving upon an even older standing stone.