Next up on our ogham journey is Edad. Not sure what ogham is? Here is a quick refresh…
Ogham is an ancient Irish inscription alphabet that was used to inscribe headstones and other important markers. In mythology, it was created by the God Ogma (OH-muh) to warn Lugh about a plot to steal his wife. Today, Ogham is used in magic and divination.
If you want to learn more about what ogham is in general, I wrote about that here: Irish Tree Language - The Ogham 
I also have a video explaining the origin story of ogham that you can watch here: https://youtu.be/CWEm2pcAFc8
Edad (pronounced eh-dahd) is the fourth fíd of the fourth and final aicme. Edad is a word that has no meaning in Irish. Erynn Rowan Laurie has chosen to connect the word Edad with the Amanita muscaria mushroom due to the red-speckled color associated with the word. This color and the connection with the mushroom point directly to the main keyword for Edad: vision. The tree associated with Edad is the Yew tree. Commonly found in graveyards around Scotland and Ireland, the Yew is heavily associated with death, liminal spaces, and the journey to the Otherworld.
According to Weaving Word Wisdom, there are three traditional word oghams associated with Edad. These are:
- érgnaid fid - discerning tree, distinguished wood
- commaín carat - exchange of friends, synonym for a friend
- brátahir beithi - brother of birch
However, edad only appears in The Ogham Tract connected to Yew one time in a list of ogham feda and their respective trees. Elsewhere in The Ogham Tract, Edad is connected to the Aspen.
Onn, o, furze or ash. Ur, u, thorn. Edad, e, yew. Ida, i, service tree.
Since there is no connection to Yew in The Ogham Tract, we can instead look to the Word Ogham brátahir beithi - brother of birch. This is where Laurie made the connection between the Amanita muscaria mushroom and Edad. She says that this mushroom “grows in a symbiotic relationship with the birch tree, and can thus be interpreted as a ‘brother of birch’…”
Knowing this and the connection with the mushroom, we can infer that this fíd has a connection with divination, the Otherworld, and altered states of consciousness. It is not the journey itself, though. This fíd represents the tools used to make the journey.
Yew trees are also connected to divination and altered states of consciousness through Irish lore. In the Tochmarc Étaíne, oghams were carved on four rods made of Yew to determine where Étaíne had been taken when she was kidnapped.
This tree also has a connection to immortality and death itself. It is one of the longest living trees, and the tree itself is actually quite toxic! Funnily enough, the Yew tree’s wood was used to make bows, further connecting it to death. Looking at this in a broader sense, the Yew tree was used to make a tool to achieve an altered state of consciousness: death.
[Photo by Wyxina Tresse on Unsplash]
Yew Tree
Called Iúr in Irish, the Yew tree is native to Ireland and is found in old woods or artificial boundaries of cemeteries and estates. It is a dramatic tree with dark foliage and brightly-colored berries. According to The Irish Tree Council, Reenadina woods, also known as Mossy Woods, on the Muckross Peninsula, Co. Kerry, is Ireland’s only native yew woodland.
Most yew trees are single sex, and most Irish yews are female, bearing fruit with a single seed. There are some ornamental varieties with different colored berries, but they must be propagated rather than grown from seed. While the seeds and wood are toxic to people and most animals, the Yew tree makes an excellent habitat for wildlife that can take advantage of its branches.
I already mentioned how Yew was connected to divination in the story of Tochmarc Étaíne. However, that is not the only story in which the Yew plays a role. There is also the story of Fintan mac Bóchra in The Settling of the Manor of Tara. In this story, Fintan planted a yew berry and lived long enough to see the tree grow and shelter a hundred men before it died of old age.
‘One day I passed through a wood in West Munster in the west. I took away with me a red yew berry and I planted it in the garden of my court, and it grew up there until it was as big as a man. Then I removed it from the garden and planted it on the lawn of my court even, and it grew up in the centre of that lawn so that I could fit with a hundred warriors under its foliage, and it protected me from wind and rain, and from cold and heat. I remained and so did my yew flourishing together, until it shed its foliage from decay.
The Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids writes more about the Yew tree from different countries. Here is the information from Ireland, since we are covering an Irish alphabet. For more stories from OBOD, click here.
In Irish mythology, the yew is one of the five sacred trees brought from the Otherworld at the division of the land into five parts. Known as the Tree of Ross, it was said to be the ‘offspring of the tree that is in Paradise’, and it brought lasting plenty to Ireland. In the Brehon Laws, it is named as one of the Seven Chieftain Trees, with heavy penalties for felling one. Ownership of a yew-tree is the cause of a great battle in the twelfth century tale, ‘Yew Tree of the Disputing Sons’. The tree’s high status is also shown in an Irish tale from the Historical Cycle in which a swine herd dreamed he saw a yew tree upon a rock, with an oratory in front of it. Angels ascended and descended from a flagstone at the threshold. He told a druid who interpreted the dream to mean that the rock would be the seat of Kings of Munster from that day forth, and the first king would be he who kindled a fire beneath the yew.
In Divination
In a divinatory reading, Edad is heavily connected with divination, visions, and journey work.
Here are some keywords I’ve come up with in my studies for Edad regarding divination.
- divination
- visions
- altered states
- dreams
- intoxication
- ecstasy
- spirit work
- Otherworld
- discernment
- enlightenment
At the end of every fíd in her book, Erynn has questions and linked concepts to think about for each one. For Edad, she writes the following…
How do I see the world? What gifts do my insights bring?
A Personal Note
Edad is a fíd that I have felt connected to but haven’t worked with. It can be worked with to enhance dreams and visions, and magically, it can aid your psychic work and shadow work. As a fíd of deeper and darker levels of the world, it is definitely one that calls to my spirit.
Sources and Further Reading
– Celtic Ogham Symbols and Their Meanings
– The Ogham Tract
– Weaving Word Wisdom by Erynn Rowan Laurie
It felt good to sit back down and study the ogham again. It’s been too long.