Idad - Juniper || Learning Ogham

Yup, that’s an alternate way of orienting them depending on how you write them down. When ogham was written on stones, it was written from bottom to top. When manuscripts were created, they were written from left to right in the same way Latin is written.

You’ve got to look at the ogham fíd, not the tree, because some of the feda are associated with multiple trees. Idad, for example, is associated heavily with yew as well as juniper, but since yew was covered in Edad, juniper is used for Idad.

And since Aspen was already covered with Ebad (which is a forfeda that hasn’t been written about yet), Edad is associated with yew.


A lot of modern ogham interpretation, especially Neo-Pagan resources, is based purely on personal gnosis but written as fact. However, there’s actually not a lot of information about ogham as divination from ancient sources because the only evidence we have of that use, or a magical use, is in the mythology. Irish tradition is an oral one, so the stories were passed down by word of mouth until the Christians made it to Ireland and began writing down their stories.

So, the difference between the symbols is simply one extra line across. Edad has four, and Idad has five.

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