The Origin Of The Name Of Ogma (1)

LINKS BETWEEN OGMA, OGMIOS AND OGAM (3) ALAN GRIFFITHS

In two previous notes, I speculated on the connexion between the name of the Irish god Ogma and the Irish word oghma found in a law tract and interpreted as fulang, ‘prop, support’.1 My speculation called on the usual comparison between Ogma and the god Ogmios, who is said to have been worshipped in Gaul, as well as Herakles and his Phoenician counterpart Melqart. These ideas led to the image of Herakles supporting the universe, the pillars of Herakles, and the pillars said to have stood in the temple of Melqart at Tyre. I also referred to the possibility of a connexion with the Germanic word for ‘god’, i.e. *ansuz, and the Gothic ans < *ansaz, meaning ‘beam’. None of these ideas, however, leads to an etymology for the name of Ogma, while the precise relation between Ogma and the Irish script ogam remains obscure. The relation between ogam and pillars, though, is indisputable. In the second of his two articles on ogam in the journal Hermathena, Charles Graves emphasized the association of ogam inscriptions with pillar-stones.2 In the sources he cited, pillar-stones were referred to as gallan or dallan (gallán being the diminutive of gall). Graves quoted from Cormac’s Glossary: ‘Gall, i.e. pillar-stone, e.g. nis comaithig combatar selba co cobrandaib gall “they are not neighbours till their properties are [provided] with boundaries [?] of pillar stones.” Gall, then, means four things, i.e. first a pillarstone: it is so called because it was the Gaill that first fixed them in Ireland.’3 The ogam inscriptions on such stones usually commemorated a deceased member of a family or tribe. But because the stones were customarily set up at the boundary of the family’s or tribe’s territory, Graves pointed out that ‘The ancient d so often passed into g, that the word [gall] might be more naturally referred to dal, a division.’ He rejected Cormac’s proposed etymology that referred to the stones as being connected with the Gaill. However, an early meaning of Irish Gall was ‘a Gaul’, so that it is certainly conceivable that the setting-up of comemmorative stones on a territory’s boundary was perceived as being a custom introduced from Gaul. It is all too easy to be fuzzy here! Pillars have featured in monuments from megalithic structures to modern temples of finance, and people have venerated their gods, idols and heroes as or on pillars from the golden calf to Nelson on his column. The Irish stones with ogam inscriptions, however, have a specific connexion with other types of stones set up as boundary-marks, milestones and signposts, namely Greek herms and Roman terms. A Greek herm – a word perhaps related to Greek ἕρμα, herma, meaning ‘stone’ – was typically a quadrangular pillar, of the proportions of a human body, topped with a head, usually that of the god Hermes (Roman Mercury). Apart from being a god

of travellers and merchants, who would clearly have been well served by boundary-markers and signposts, Hermes-Mercury was a god of eloquence like, it appears, Ogmios. Ogmios, however, was associated with Herakles-Melqart, not with Hermes-Mercury. On the other hand, Hermes-Mercury was associated with the Nordic god Odin-Wodin, who was said to have invented the runic script. Moreover, a Scandinavian Bautastein – a pillar-stone with runic inscriptions comemmorating the deceased 4 – is reminiscent of an Irish gallan-dallan. The theme of inscriptions on stones as memorials to the dead, functioning as boundary-markers, milestones and signposts, is probably what connects all the gods – Hermes, Mercury, Odin, Wodin, Ogmios and Melqart – in the role of psychopompos, the conductor of souls along the road to the afterlife. Lucian’s description of Ogmios as an old man with a crowd of followers chained by their ears to his tongue could refer to this role of psychopompos as much as it does to the god’s eloquence drawing his followers on: However, I have yet to mention the most remarkable feature in the portrait. This ancient Heracles drags after him a vast crowd of men, all of whom are fastened by the ears with thin chains composed of gold and amber, and looking more like beautiful necklaces than anything else. From this flimsy bondage they make no attempt to escape, though escape must be easy. There is not the slightest show of resistance: instead of planting their heels in the ground and dragging back, they follow with joyful alacrity, singing their captor's praises the while; and from the eagerness with which they hurry after him to prevent the chains from tightening, one would say that release is the last thing they desire.5

According to the conventional interpretatio Romana, however, the Celtic god usually associated with Mercury was Lugh/Lugus. There is no record of Ogma in the role of psychopompos. Irish texts, it seems, were more intent on placing him on a hero’s pedestal. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1 http://www.pdfcoke.com/doc/19073388/the-origin-of-the-name-of-ogma and http://www.pdfcoke.com/doc/20478134/The-Origin-of-the-Name-of-Ogma-2 2 Graves, C., 1879, ‘On the Ogam Beith Luis Nin’. Hermathena 3, 208-44. Charles Graves is not to be confused with his grandson, Robert Graves, author of The White Goddess. 3 Graves cites the quotation as being from ‘Cormac’s Glossary’, Stokes, W. (ed.) 1862, Three Irish glossaries. 4 Düwel, K, 2008, Runenkunde, 35 ff. 5 The Works Of Lucian Of Samosata: Complete With Exceptions Specified In The Preface. Vol.III. Translated by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, Oxford University Press, 1905. See also: Harmon, A.M., 1913, Lucian I, Loeb Classical series, 62 ff.; Green, M., 1992, Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend, 165-6.