The forfeda are five additional trees and plants considered to be a far later addition to the ogham, less directly magical in use. They are included in The Ogham Tract, and are commonly thought to be the addition of letters and sounds absent in Old Irish but present in Greek and Latin, which were in common use at the time.
Magically speaking, they are far more obscure, although contact with their plant spirits reveals them to be as much plants of power as the first twenty ogham trees. They are included here for thoroughness and as first clues for the seeker’s magical investigation. The forfeda lack a complete set of word oghams to accompany and elucidate their meanings; there is some debate about which trees are referenced, as the source materials have many discrepancies.
The forfeda are EA for ebadh, the poplar; OI for oir, the spindle; UI for uilleann, the honeysuckle; IO for iphin, the gooseberry; and either AE for eamhancholl, the witch hazel, or PH for phagos, the beech.
EA/Ebadh (white poplar)
The white poplar, Populus alba, was discussed earlier in this book in relation to the ogham eadha, aspen. Its function is a gateway tree to the otherworld, helping to assist with acclimatising to increases or dramatic changes in energy or atmosphere, especially when encountering the dead or the otherworld, as both eadha and ebadh stand on either side of idho, the yew, the entrance point to infinity. Here the seeker can access another chance to come to terms with the transition as well as the energies and beings encountered. The aspen and the poplar stand on either side of the great womb and tomb of the goddess, guiding us smoothly and compassionately through death into what lies beyond.
OI/Oir (spindle)
Spindle, Euonymus europaeus, is primarily used to make spindles in weaving, hence its name. Weaving has a special place in magical lore, especially in Celtic and northern European folk tales, where it is always associated with fate, destiny, and weaver goddesses, such as the Norse Norns, who wove the fate of every living person, cutting the threads when their time was up.
Named after Euonyme—the mother of the Furies, or goddesses of vengeance—the spindle is intimately associated with women’s magic and skills. Weaving cloth is connotated with fate and destiny in addition to domesticity, and thus security and peace. Where the weaver goddess goes, women and children are safe, resources are abundant, and creativity (not basic survival) comes to the fore. These gifts are as much due to the goddess’s ferocity as her kindness.
In pre-dynastic Egypt, the weaver goddess Nit (or Neith) was considered to be the most ancient one to whom the other gods went for wisdom. In Greece, the Moirai or three Fates were three ancient crones who controlled human destiny. The Norse and Germanic goddess Frigg is always associated with weaving, as are the Valkyries, who feature in “The Song of the Spear” as weaving with human heads to weight the thread, and human guts as the thread for the warp.197 The German Frau Holda is also associated with weaving, as is the Greek Athena, and the Roman Minerva. In the Celtic world, Brigantia—often associated with Minerva—may also have been considered a weaver goddess, overseeing the sovereignty of Britain and its people.
Spindle is common in Britain, Ireland, and northern Europe. A variety of spindle, Euonymus atropurpureus, is common in the eastern United States.
UI/Uilleann (honeysuckle)
Lonicera periclymenum, the honeysuckle, is associated with the sign of Cancer and is usually considered to be a very feminine plant.198 Culpeper suggests it is useful for sore throats, while modern writers sometimes associate the honeysuckle with Jupiter and thus consider it useful for money spells and matters of love and friendship. The great beauty, delicious scent, and climbing and twining properties of the honeysuckle suggest that, like ivy, its place in magic is related to community, relationships, and binding disparate groups together harmoniously (time spent connecting with its spirit confirm this), together with the assistance it can grant in matters related to romance and of the heart. Honeysuckle is associated with courtship in lowland Scotland, where young men would carry a stick of honeysuckle for good luck in love. It was also said to be good to draw good luck into the home and protect from malicious faeries.199
The vibrational essence of honeysuckle is usually used for dealing with feelings of regret and sadness, releasing the energetic and emotional tendrils that hold us in the past. Honeysuckle is wonderful for opening the heart centre and making us available to the unconditional love of divinity. It encourages us to become fully present in the here and now.
IO/Iphin (gooseberry)
Gooseberry traditionally has been used in childbirth and for menstrual problems; the early herbal writer Gerard suggests that it can be used to staunch bleeding and stop “the menses or monthly bleeding.”200 Later herbals suggest it is useful taken monthly as a tonic for pubescent girls.201 For this reason, gooseberry was considered sacred to the goddess Brighid and goddesses like her who oversee matters of childbirth and women’s cycles, such as Diana and Arianrhod. In modern times, gooseberry is primarily taken as a food, in sauces, tarts, and pies.
The gooseberry has uses in all sorts of magical healing charms and spells; its thorns direct away illness in a similar fashion to that of the blackthorn but with a gentler energy. It also helps with issues related to eyesight and vision, the berries themselves resembling eyeballs. Gooseberry thorns were used in Ireland as a form of sympathetic magic to heal styes. Point the gooseberry thorn at the eyelid, and say, “Away! Away! Away!” Doing so is said to make the stye vanish.202
AE/Eamhancholl (witch hazel or wych elm)
The witch hazel referred to here is the British name for the witch elm, not the common witch hazel cultivated in North America. Also seen as “wych elm,” Ulmus glabra is the only native elm in the British Isles. The “witch” or “wych” in its name is in fact drawn from the Middle English word wice or wiche, meaning “supple” and “bendable.”
The wych elm or witch hazel was commonly used to make cart wheels, as its strength and suppleness make it good for bending. It was also used to make bows. Culpeper places elm under the rulership of Saturn.203 In Celtic and later Saxon lore, the elm was associated with the underworld, the sidhe, and the elves, who were said to live in burial mounds and Neolithic barrow tombs. In Gaelic the elm is known as leven and is found in many place names such as Loch Leven in Kinross, Scotland. There, the wych elm was used for dyeing, where strips of elm were used to tie strands of cloth in a form of early tie-dye. The boiled bark of the elm was also used to treat burns and other wounds.
Witch hazel’s ogham is usually the same as the one for beech.
PH/Phagos (beech)
The beech tree, Fagus sylvatica, is traditionally called the “queen of the woods” because of its great beauty. In Britain it is often associated with snakes and earth energies due to its serpentine root system. Beautiful examples of this can be found at the ancient stone circles of Avebury in Wiltshire, where the serpentine roots of beech trees encircle much of the henge or ceremonial ditch. The circle complex itself has a reputation as a dragon temple (another serpentine association), sacred to earth energies and the earth herself. The Gallo-Roman god of beech trees, Fagus, is known because of altars dedicated to him in the French Pyrenees, suggesting their importance to the Celts who lived there.204 The Roman writer Pliny describes how an orator worshipped a beech tree in the Alban Hills as a personification of the goddess Diana.205
Beech is intimately associated with learning and knowledge. The Anglo-
Saxon word for “beech” was boc, the source of the word “book.” The first runes and the first oghams were said to be carved on slips of beech, and for this reason the beech is said to be sacred to Ogma as well as the goddess Danu, a goddess of knowledge and learning, mother of the Irish gods the Tuatha Dé Danann.
The medieval Welsh poem “The Battle of the Trees” (Cad Goddeu) by the bard Taliesin refers to the beech as a tree which “prospers through spells and litanies,” showing its close associations with magic and magical lore.206 Any spells or prayers spoken at beech’s roots were said to come true, and curses said under its boughs were said to be more effective—so long as the goddess approved. Spells of any kind can be written upon beech wood or a beech leaf and buried to draw the attention and support of the earth goddess.
Water from the hollow of a beech tree is excellent for spellwork, blessing, healing skin complaints, as well as gaining the goddess’s beauty. As a vibrational essence, beech is used to increase tolerance, compassion, and gentleness. Again, beech allows us to draw in the qualities of unconditional love the Great Goddess offers.
197 “Darradarljod: The Battle Song of the Valkyries” (http://www.orkneyjar.com
/tradition/darra.htm).
198 Culpeper, Complete Herbal, 190.
199 John Matthews and Will Worthington, The Green Man Tree Oracle
(New York: Barnes and Noble, 2003), 100.
200 Gerard, “Of goose-berry,” Gerard’s Herbal.
201 Grieve, A Modern Herbal, 365.
202 Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland (London: Chatto and Windus, 1902), 198.
203 Culpeper, Complete Herbal, 131.
204 Green, Dictionary of Celtic Myth, 95.
205 James George Frazer, “The King of the Wood,” chapter 1 in The Golden Bough (http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/frazer/gb00103.htm).
206 Graves, White Goddess, 45.