Ghost of a flea: Ogham

June 05, 2004

Ogham

King Arthur: the trailer. Let's have another look at Guinevere shall we?

A complaint... The Flash interface for the King Arthur website has interactive runes. Nice, except these are alphabet of the invading English not Arthur's Britons, i.e. Welsh. The Druids, the Brithonic priest caste, used ogham script when they felt the need to write something. Or, according to a studious observer of the Gauls, yet another non-Germanic alphabet.

Once there they are said to have to learn by heart a great deal of poetry; indeed many stay on in training for twenty years. They consider it wrong to commit all these things to writing, though in other matters, indeed both in public and private documents they use the Greek alphabet. Presumably they do this for two reasons; first, because they do not want the details of their training to become common knowledge; and secondly, because they feel that once these details were written down those undegoing training would be less inclined to develop their memory. (Most people find that once they rely on the written word they pay less attention to learning by heart.)

- Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico

And then... I am now wondering if those runes appear on Caladvwlch (Caliburn in Latin... Excalibur, that is) itself. Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed it was forged at Avalon, hardly a spot for Saxon runes. Shuddersome. Worse yet is the reported nationality of Arthur. The article has some very general spoilers if that sort of thing worries you.

�I love the pictures of Guinevere in her leather bikini � but historically accurate? Please, someone, give Arthur a break!�

Posted by Ghost of a flea at June 5, 2004 01:21 PM

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Comments

do you know the orgham for defender of the land and is that what excallibur had written on it what would it look like?
Thnaks

Posted by: Jigz at November 2, 2004 01:07 PM