Notes

          Again, another busy day taking care of Owen and then an excellent supper of a salad and a delicious turkey and vegetable soup Kim froze in December. A trip to the Apple Store and the incredibly wonderful Italian gelato store next door, one that has gelato that tastes just like that in gelato store in Florence last Fall. A trip to Italy less than four miles away. You came home and watched Bones as it was the one-hundredth episode.

         Merlyn does not realize who the Supervisor is in this scene. Check Druidism and see what you can find.

         I checked and read several sources on the Celtic alphabet which are of unique interest to me because ‘kennings’ are used in their description. Here is material from Wikipedia that shows this focus.

“The letter names are interpreted as names of trees or shrubs in manuscript tradition, both in Auraicept na n-Éces ('The Scholars' Primer') and In Lebor Ogaim ('The Ogam Tract'). They were first discussed in modern times by Roderic O'Flaherty (1685), who took them at face value. The Auraicept itself is aware that not all names are known tree names, saying "Now all these are wood names such as are found in the Ogham Book of Woods, and are not derived from men", admitting that "some of these trees are not known today". The Auraicept gives a short phrase or kenning for each letter, known as a Bríatharogam, that traditionally accompanied each letter name, and a further gloss explaining their meanings and identifying the tree or plant linked to each letter. Only five of the twenty primary letters have tree names that the Auraicept considers comprehensible without further glosses, namely beith "birch", fearn "alder", saille "willow" , duir "oak" and coll "hazel". All the other names have to be glossed or "translated" with a plant name.

According to the leading modern ogham scholar, Damian McManus the "Tree Alphabet" idea dates to the Old Irish period (say, 10th century), but it post-dates the Primitive Irish period, or at least the time when the letters were originally named. Its origin is probably due to the letters themselves being called feda "trees", or nin "forking branches" due to their shape. Since a few of the letters were, in fact, named after trees, the interpretation arose that they were called feda because of that. Some of the other letter names had fallen out of use as independent words, and were thus free to be claimed as "Old Gaelic" tree names, while others (such as ruis, úath or gort) were more or less forcefully re-interpreted as epitheta of trees by the medieval glossators.”

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogham

         A kenning is a “metaphorical compound word or phrase (as swan-road for ocean) uses especially in Old English and Old Norse poetry”, according to Merriam-Webster.

         According to legendary accounts (in the Wikipedia article):

“The first message written in Ogam were seven b's on a birch, sent as a warning to Lug mac Elathan, meaning: "your wife will be carried away seven times to the otherworld unless the birch protects her". For this reason, the letter b is said to be named after the birch, and In Lebor Ogaim goes on to tell the tradition that all letters were named after trees, a claim also referred to by the Auraicept as an alternative to the naming after Fenius' disciples.”

            With this material you want me to create a plausible story based on myth and legend?

        

         I would like to use this in the scene in some way – it gives the tree a special meaning to me. The Tree of Thought and Light connected to an alphabetic form that a Druid such as Merlyn might have known. It makes the story more interesting to me. It means the letters somehow have a special bond or connection with the ‘Creation’ in the story. I like that very much.

         We can work on it when we can work on it. – Amorella.