emancoll - all intuitive, all the time
Emancoll, the last letter of the forfeda may have the least amount of associated lore. The kennings sound more like a pronunciation guide (as in "ach") although the sense of illness and pain may appropriately be with this letter.
The tree name - read as twin or double hazel does not have a definitive identity. The Scholar's primer lists it as witch hazel, which seems wrong since that plant is not native to any part of Europe. One website by MuddyMagus suggests, that the term witch hazel meant wych elm. This is backed up by the Concise Oxford Etymological Dictionary entry on wych hazel that defines any pliable branched tree as a wych hazel. The terminology is a bit of problem, since wych is anglo-saxon. However the concept of "hazel-ness" may allow the possibility of thinking of plants that were used like hazels to be grouped as a class. Note that wych means having pliable branches with nothing to do with witchcraft.
Wych elm has a number of odd uses. Because of water resistance, it is used in boats and water pipes. Elm suckers can be woven into baskets. It is a wood traditionally used for coffins and one website suggests that the trees protected graveyards and aided the dead in making their way to the underworld- not footnoted, alas.
With so little from the kennings and the plant identification, I thought to take a different take and think about the letter shape itself. The letter itself is a lattice of four rows by four columns. Visually, it looks like a net or a basket. Going down that line, one particular characteristic of elms, in general, and wych elms in particular, is that they have centuries long resistance to water. Fish trap ruins in the Severn River (Wales) contain sharpened stakes of wych elm (along with some oak) that had been there from the 10th century or so. Such a pattern of driven stakes could also look like the letter itself.
On my one trip to Ireland, the fish traps were all modern. Weirs (a low dam) guided salmon into pens where they were then trapped. Ancient fish traps worked much the same way, forcing migrating fish into a containment area and then lifting them out in baskets. A few things come to mind.
There is Finn Eces, fishing seven years for the salmon of knowledge and finally catching it only for the benefit of Fionn MacCumhail. No mention is made of whether the salmon was trapped or speared, but trapping is somewhat more effective. Then there is Taleisin (Welsh) thrown into the sea in a basket (possibly woven) and then fetched up in a fishing weir. Could it be that emancoll is "fishing for knowledge?" There is a certain symmetry here between coll, ebad and emancoll - the place of knowledge, the salmon of knowledge and fishing for knowledge. In any case, It does make a fine ending to the complete set of ogams.
blessings,
david
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The tree name - read as twin or double hazel does not have a definitive identity. The Scholar's primer lists it as witch hazel, which seems wrong since that plant is not native to any part of Europe. One website by MuddyMagus suggests, that the term witch hazel meant wych elm. This is backed up by the Concise Oxford Etymological Dictionary entry on wych hazel that defines any pliable branched tree as a wych hazel. The terminology is a bit of problem, since wych is anglo-saxon. However the concept of "hazel-ness" may allow the possibility of thinking of plants that were used like hazels to be grouped as a class. Note that wych means having pliable branches with nothing to do with witchcraft.
Wych elm has a number of odd uses. Because of water resistance, it is used in boats and water pipes. Elm suckers can be woven into baskets. It is a wood traditionally used for coffins and one website suggests that the trees protected graveyards and aided the dead in making their way to the underworld- not footnoted, alas.
With so little from the kennings and the plant identification, I thought to take a different take and think about the letter shape itself. The letter itself is a lattice of four rows by four columns. Visually, it looks like a net or a basket. Going down that line, one particular characteristic of elms, in general, and wych elms in particular, is that they have centuries long resistance to water. Fish trap ruins in the Severn River (Wales) contain sharpened stakes of wych elm (along with some oak) that had been there from the 10th century or so. Such a pattern of driven stakes could also look like the letter itself.
On my one trip to Ireland, the fish traps were all modern. Weirs (a low dam) guided salmon into pens where they were then trapped. Ancient fish traps worked much the same way, forcing migrating fish into a containment area and then lifting them out in baskets. A few things come to mind.
There is Finn Eces, fishing seven years for the salmon of knowledge and finally catching it only for the benefit of Fionn MacCumhail. No mention is made of whether the salmon was trapped or speared, but trapping is somewhat more effective. Then there is Taleisin (Welsh) thrown into the sea in a basket (possibly woven) and then fetched up in a fishing weir. Could it be that emancoll is "fishing for knowledge?" There is a certain symmetry here between coll, ebad and emancoll - the place of knowledge, the salmon of knowledge and fishing for knowledge. In any case, It does make a fine ending to the complete set of ogams.
blessings,
david
/|\