The Origin Of The Name Of Ogma (3)

LINKS BETWEEN OGMA, OGMIOS AND OGAM? ALAN GRIFFITHS The origin of the name of Ogma — the god who is said to have invented the Irish ogam system of writing — has been the subject of much speculation, past and present. A good summary of the different theories is provided by Damian McManus,1 who is quite rightly wary of speculation. In this note, however, I fly a kite or two, which may attract comment and further the discussion. McManus points to three passages in the literature that relate to Ogma and his attributes: • the proposed etymological connexion between the word ogam and the name Ogma as put forward in In Lebor Ogaim, ‘The Book of Ogams’;2 • Ogma’s activities as described in Cath Maige Tuired, ‘The [second] Battle of Mag Tuired’ (CMT);3 • Lucian’s well-known description of the Gaulish god Ogmios, whose name has been linked to that of Ogma.4 I take each of these themes in turn, but in a slightly different order from McManus: • Lucian’s description of Ogmios • the question of etymology • the role of Ogma in CMT Each section contains essentially the same information as provided by McManus, but I have added comment or two. I also offer an additional suggestion on a possible meaning of ogma which may link Lucian’s description of Ogmios and the role of Ogam in CMT. 1. Lucian’s description of Ogmios In an often quoted passage, Lucian (Heracles 1 ff.) reports that the Gauls referred to the Greek god Herakles (Roman Hercules) as Ogmios, who is dressed and equipped like Herakles with lion’s skin, club, quiver and bow. The puzzling thing, however, is that Ogmios is not only depicted as an old man, rather than a virile warrior, but also has a number of people chained by their ears to his tongue. This image is explained to Lucian as symbolizing the god’s eloquence, which reaches fruition in later life; those chained to his tongue are following him spellbound. It might be expected that the god connected with eloquence would have been Hermes (Roman Mercury) rather than Herakles. In citing this passage, however, McManus and others have failed to point out that Herakles was closely associated with the Phoenician god Melqarth, the city god of Tyre, and later Carthage, who was a god of civilization and the sciences.5 Both Herakles and Melqarth were associated with the colonization of the Mediterranean coasts by the Phoenicians and Greeks. Melqarth had a famous sanctuary in Gades/Gadeira (Cadiz), and in southern Gaul he will have been familar through contact with the Carthaginians; he was the divine protector of Hannibal and his family. As McManus emphasises, the significance of Lucian’s account of Ogmios in relation to Ogma is twofold. On the one hand, the description is consistent with that of Ogma in In Lebor Ogaim (l. 5470) as a fer ro-eolach a mberla 7 a filidecht, ‘a man skilled in speech and poetry.’ On the other hand, Ogmios’s attributes of lion’s skin club, etc., are consistent with Ogma’s role as trénf’er, ‘warrior’, in CMT (§§ 72, 105). Etymologically, however, any association of the names Ogmios and Ogma, and of the name of the writing system ogam, is problematic.

2. Etymology In In Lebor Ogaim (ll. 5478-79),6 an Isodorian-type etymology is presented for the word ogam (the earlier forms of which are in fact ogom or ogum7): ‘Ogam [is] from Ogma suo inventore primo according to its sound, quidem; and from ōg-úaim, [‘perfect sewing’ or ‘alliteration’] according to matter. The father of ogam is Ogma and his hand or knife is its mother.’ Following up on this lead, Carney suggested8 that the first syllable , og-, might represent the word meaning ‘point, part of a sharp weapon’, rather than óg, meaning ‘perfect’. The sense of the combination og-úaim could then be something like ‘a seam made by the point of a sharp weapon’, as a description of a line of ogam characters. This sense would not only fit the notion of a knife being the mother of ogam, but also tie in with words for writing in other languages, such as Greek, γραφειν, Latin, scribere (cf. German schreiben), and English, write (cf. Old Norse rīsta), all of which reflect an act of cutting or scratching in connexion with writing. McManus finds this idea attractive but objects that the second element, -úaim, has a lenited final -m and as a verbal noun ending in m should be a u-, a- or n-stem, whereas the word ogam is an o-stem with unlenited –m. Other conjectures cited by McManus for possible etymological links between Ogma, Ogmios and ogam include two discussed by Thurneysen:9 • *ogmos, *Ogmios, which Thurneysen rejects, because the Old Irish reflexes would have been *óm, *Ómae, with loss of g before the nasal and compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel; and • *ogosmo- or *ugosmo- for ogam, which would not, however, have allowed an equation of Ogma and Ogmios without assuming an irregular syncope for Gaulish Ogmios. MacNeill’s idea10 that Ogma was a late borrowing of Gaulish Ogmios is unlikely in McManus’s view because the name would have to have been borrowed after *ogm- > *óm-, which would have been some time after the period of ogam inscriptions. Also unlikely sources for ogam, according to McManus, are Richardson’s suggestion11 of agma as the lettername for the letter ng, ŋ (a supposedly characteristic ogam letter), and Killeen’s suggestion12 of Greek ογµιος, ‘furrow’. Apart from the problem of the g before m, the initial a- in agma is problematic, and ογµιος is not attested in Greek with the metaphorical meaning of ‘writing’. Thus, an etymological connexion between ogam, Ogma and Ogmios remains dubious. But the tradition of a connexion between a Herakles-like god Ogma and the inventor of a writing system is supported by the description of Ogma’s activities in Cath Maige Tuired. 3. The role of Ogma in CMT McManus does not think that the Ogma as described in CMT fits the bill as alphabet inventor. According to this myth, Ogma’s role is that of trénf’er, ‘warrior’, “whose considerable strength ... is diminished only by undernourishment during the reign of Bres [his half-brother] when he is made to perform the menial task of fetching firewood. As Thurneysen noted,13 he is not distinguished in CMT for the quality of eloquence with which In Lebor Ogaim credits him and there is no indication whatsoever that the author of CMT was familiar with the ascription to him of the important role of inventor of a writing system” 14. However, it would appear that both McManus and Thurneysen have missed the point. Ogma’s patronym of mac Elathan (< elatha, elada, ‘art, science’) is not the only thing that points to the god’s association with writing. I have already emphasised the relation of Herakles to the Phoenician god Melqarth and his grandfather Cadmus, the importer of the alphabet into the Greek world. The task of fetching wood allotted to Ogma may have been

menial. But Herakles too had menial (even if formidable) tasks among those he was allotted by his task-master king.: the cleaning of the Augeias’s stables was one. Surely, Ogma’s specific task of fetching or gathering firewood is nothing more nor less than a reference to writing. Not only is Irish fid used in the senses of both ‘tree, wood’ and ‘letter’ (as the Germanic *stab- for ‘stave, staff, letter’, cf. OE rūnstæf, bōkstæf; ON bókstafr, latinustafr; OHG rûnstab, buohstab); the action of ‘gathering’ reflects the words derived from Latin legere, ‘gather, read’, that are used for reading in French (lire) and German (lesen).15 Thus, when Ogma ‘gathers firewood’, he is actually ‘reading letters’. His menial task is ‘elevated’ — in the eyes of those educated in such things. 4. Ogma as support? A gloss in a law tract, cited by DIL,16 gives oghma .i. fulang. The interpretation fulang can be translated as ‘support, prop’, being a verbal noun related to the verb fo-loing [bears, supports, sustains]. Another noun related to the same verb is fulach, folach [bearing, supporting]. The gloss may have nothing to do with the name Ogma, but it raises the posibility that the name of the god was used metaphorically in the sense of ‘a support (to his foloowers)’. There are a number of words meaning literally ‘beam’ or ‘pillar’ which are used metaphorically in this way. They include: 1. clí columa 2. deil sail sess taca úaithne

champion, support, pillar champion, defender, support (of a hero) prop pillar, support (of persons) prop, supporter support, champion supporter, helper, mainstay post, prop, support (metaphorically of people)

(DIL, letter C, col. 236, line 16) (DIL, letter C, col. 331, line 04) (DIL, letter D2, col. 05, line 76) (DIL, letter S, col. 25, line 86) (DIL, letter S, col. 198, line 6) (DIL, letter T, col. 06, line 03) (DIL, letter U, col. 20, line 58)

There is no record of oghma being used in the literal sense of ‘beam, pillar, post’, but it may be in the tranferred sense of ‘a pillar (of society)’ that the name Ogam was being interpreted in the gloss. The idea of a hero or leader being a support to his followers is a commonplace. However, in view of other associations between Ogma and Hercules, it is tempting to link the concept of ogma as ‘support’ to the specific image of Hercules supporting the heavens on his shoulders, although there is no evidence of Ogma ever playing a similar role. 4. Conclusion Despite the problematic etymology, the description of Ogmios as a Gaulish Herakles and of Ogma as an incarnation of Herakles gathering wood are not at odds with the notion of a divine promotor of writing: Ogmios-Herakles, a counterpart of Phoenician Melqarth, grandson of Cadmus; and Ogma-Herakles, ‘humbly’ gathering wood, i.e. reading his letters.

1

McManus, D. 1991, A Guide to Ogam, 150-53, Maynooth. An internet search for information on Ogma, Ogmios and ogam will produce a sprinkling of primary sources, but also a plethora of views which are largely based on the publications of either Damian McManus or (the more popular but less reliable) Robert Graves. 2 Calder, G. 1917 (reprint 1995), Auraicept na n'Éces (The Scholar's Primer), 272-3, Edinburgh 3 Gray, E.A. 1982, Cath Maige Tuired, Irish Texts Society 52. 4 Harmon, A.M. 1913, Lucian I, Loeb Classical Series, 62 ff.. 5 Ribichini, S. 1988, ‘Beliefs and Religious Life,’ in: The Phoenicians, Catalogue of the exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi,Venice, Milan, 108-24 (republished in: S. Moscati (ed.) 2000, The Phoenicians, London & New York, 120-44). 6 Calder 1917, 272. 7 See Dictionary of the Irish Language, s.v. ogum (ogom), letter O, col. 112, line 063. 8 Carney, J., in: Stevenson, J. 1989, ‘The beginnings of literacy in Ireland’ Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 89, 140. 9 Thurneysen, R. 1937, ‘Zum Ogom’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 61, 195-6. 10 MacNeill, E./J. 1919, Phases of History, 170-1. 11 Richardson, J.D. 1943, ‘The word ogham’, Hermathena 62, 96-105. 12 Killeen, J.J. 1965, ‘The word ogam’, Lochlann 3, 415-19. 13 Thurneysen 1937, 195. 14 McManus 1991, 151. 15 A summary of the Germanic vocabulary on reading and writing is given by Green, D.H. 2000, Language and history in the early Germanic world, 254-70, Cambridge (Paperback edition; hardback 1998). 16 Dictionary of the Irish Language, s.v. ogma, letter O, col. 112, line 16.