THE ALPHABET OF TREES (I)

Written by Isabel del Rio

Thursday, 01 January 2009 00:00

Isabel del Río

Our gardens are full of marvelous trees which have been venerated during centuries. In their branches, the most beautiful myths and legends are hidden. We will try to know and see them with much more poetic eyes…, we will understand what a magic garden is...
Robert Graves, in the chapter X of his famous essay “The White Goddess- A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth”, studies what he calls “The alphabet of trees” in Celtic Druidic culture: letters were known by the name of a tree which started with its same initial. For example, “duir” -our oak- was also the letter “D” and “saille” –our willow- was the letter “S”… They had five vowels and thirteen consonants. These last ones formed a magic seasonal calendar based on trees and “Mother Nature” which was secretly used by Druids for centuries, even after Christian irruption.

That is not so amazing. Letters in modern Irish alphabet are also named by a tree and the whole European folklore is telling us, once and again, about similar traditions.
In ancient times, holly names were a secret (this is reasonable if we understand that they had to hidden their magic words and spells of their enemies to prevent their possible attacks), words had magic powers and letters and trees were holly and venerable. This belief continued with old Greek and Roman religions.
Monthly, in this site, we are going to speak about one of these holly trees which are filling of beauty our landscapes and gardens. We will follow the order of the Druidic alphabet (people interested in the subject can also read “Ogygia” by Roderick O’Flaherty).
First letter and tree:
Our birch was called “Beth” and represented the letter “B”. It is the tree of the beginning (for Celtic Druidic alphabet and for North European farmers: the bud of its leaves was the signal to start to sow fields).
Birches were dedicated to the Moon since Moon was “The White Goddess” or “Mother Nature”, the first and most important of all divine beings in Neolithic cultures, and since they had a lunar calendar.
They protected pregnant women and it was used to relieve menstruation pains by Greeks, Romans and even during the Middle Age.
“B” dominated the spells and druidic celebrations from the 24th of December to the 20th of January.

Today is the 1st of January. Maybe in somewhere, maybe someone is reading a lost article about the alphabet of trees… and maybe this lost druid is remembering that there were magic times of wise fools and delightful words, a time to remember that pale reflect of this dreaming Moon.
Maybe her magic is still with us, written on a forgotten wise birch.

Isabel del Río

http:// www.isabeldelrio. wordpress .com

Isabel del Río was born in Madrid (Spain). She has studied in the University of Valladolid and she has a degree in Geography and History. She likes Arts and she has been painting for years. Now, she is teaching in a secondary school in Madrid and investigating about old lost female painters. She has published a novel called “Ariza” (Grupo Editorial Alcalá ISBN 978-84-96806-52-8).

Last Updated ( Sunday, 20 September 2009 19:15 )