“When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.”
Edna O’Brien
Beyond the listed uses of Ogham for specific woods, the ancient Celts also used certain trees for creating teine éigin (“need fires”). Sacred fire was almost always kindled from the sacred woods (sometime three different tree types and sometimes nine). According to Lewis Spence in his book, “The History and Origins of Druidism,” the Druids kindled the teine éigin from the wood of two oaks (either by rubbing or rotating them against one another)…
This technique is also mentioned in the “ silver Bough” by F. Marian McNeill. The fire was built from nine pieces of oak (arranged around a center). Welsh tradition has it that such fires were started with oak, but were actually built upon nine woods, brought by nine separate men that had gone into the forest (after an initial preparatory ritual). Each man would place a single wood within the fire pit for the fire. In Scottish lore, according to Alexander Carmichael in his book Carmina Gadelica, eight of these woods are identified.
Woods for the Need Fire
“Tagh seileach nan allr, Tagh calltainnnan creag, Tagh fearna nan lón, Tagh beithe nan eas, Tagh uinnseann nan dubhair, Tagh iubhar nan leuma, Tagh leamhannan bruthaich, Tagh duire na gréine.”
“Choose the willow of the streams, Choose the hazel of the rocks, Choose the alder of the marshes, Choose the birch of the waterfalls, Choose the rowan of the shade, Choose the yew of resilience, Choose the elm of the brae, Choose the oak of the sun.”
– Scottish Lore from The Silver Bough by F. Marian McNeill
According to McNeill, the ninth sacred wood could possibly be the holly, ash or pine. In the “Song of the Forest Trees,” an Irish poem of wood wisdom from the 13th century, the following trees are identified as not to be burned:
Burn Ye Not
woodbine – monarch of the forests…
apple – tree ever decked in blooms of white.. blackthorn – throughout his body … birds in their flocks warble. willow – a tree sacred to poems.
hazel – spare the limber tree.
ash – rods he furnishes for horsemen’s hands.
Burn Ye These
rowan – the wizard’s tree.
briar – burn him that is so keen and green.
oak – fiercest heat giver of all timber.
alder – very battle-witch of all woods.
holly – burn it green, burn it dry.
elder – him that furnishes horses to the armies of the Sídhe burn. birch – burn up most sure the stalks that bear the constant pads. aspen – burn, be it late or early.
The yew is singled out as being sacred to the feast. Trees were venerated among the Celts and Druids, especially since they supplied nuts for food and wood for shelter and roads. Each tribe had a special tree that was sacred to it. This tree was known as a Bile. This is the name of one of the sacred ancestors of the Sons of Míl. I expect that this veneration of trees and ancestors implies that a tree was also a part of the hidden Celtic origin or creation story.
The Sacred Bile
“It is very likely that this tree worship takes us back to the beginning
of the Irish as a people and to a religion that is much older than Christianity.”
from the Holy Wells of Ireland by Patrick Logan
Each Irish Tuatha had a special tree that was chosen to represent the heart and spirit of the tribe. This was known as the Bile. This tree connected the tuatha to the Three Worlds and the Gods. It was a place of meetings, especially those requiring the resolution of spiritual matters and kingship. Patrick Logan showed in his book “The Holy Wells of Ireland,” how these Bile were frequently located next to sacred wells (which were also considered to be passageways to the Gods and the Otherworld). Some of the famous sacred Bile are: Eó Mugna (an oak), Eó Rossa (a yew), Bile Tortu (an ash), Bile Magh-Adair (sacred tree of the ÓBriens.. probably an oak), Ruadbetheach (Red Beech, sacred tree of the ÓConnors), Craebh-telcha (sacred tree of the Ulaidh), Bile Tulach Oc (sacred tree of the ÓNeills), Crann Áhulla (a stunted ash), Bile Brighid (a sacred oak in Kildare) ….there are/were many, many others.”
When we consider the Ogham to be sacred knowledge we also acknowledge that its trees are sacred. The connection of name, sound, elemental meaning, tree and sacred nature will be demonstrated in the correspondences that are revealed between the Ogham and the knowledge of Druids. The Tree of the North is Birch It represents both Destiny and Rebirth. The Tree of the East is Oak and is the home of both Prosperity and Strength. The Tree of the South is actually the Reed through which we receive both Music and Healing. The Tree of the West is the Aspen, the Summit of Knowledge and Death’s own measure. The Tree at the center of life has its roots in the Depths of the Sea. Its trunk climbs through the Mound of the Kings. The shelter of its branches is the Roof of the Sky. It is the web of being for Land, Sea and Sky. It is the center of heart, tribe and nation. It is the Crann Beithadh, the Tree of Life. It is the Sacred Bile.
Alexei Kondratiev clarifies this idea of a sacred tree at the center of the tribe or a World Tree for us in his remarks from an internet email list:
“The World Tree or World Axis is a concept basic to I-E (Indo-European) cosmology (and found among other cultures of the area as well). In the East it’s usually conceived of as a mountain, in the West as a tree (a concept shared with Finno-Ugric tradition, perhaps witnessing to mutual influence). The practical meaning of the World Tree is that it extends between the planes, joining the world of mortals to the various spirit-worlds; and as such the image is very important in ritual contexts. While we don’t have unambiguous, historically documented evidence that the pre-Christian Celts shared in these cosmological and ritual beliefs, it’s unlikely in the extreme that they didn’t, given how general and basic they are, and how unexceptional Celtic beliefs appear in the I-E context. The sacred trees in Celtic ritual space aren’t “totemic”, but representations of the World Tree serving as communication between the planes In later temples of the “Belgic” type the ‘bilios’ is represented by a strategically placed wooden pillar — again, a feature of Eurasian religious architecture whose “world axis” meaning is well known.
Although it’s not named as such, echoes of the World Tree in story appear, for instance, in Baile in Scáil, where it marks the place where Conn meets the Sovereignty of Ireland (going from the mundane world to the place where divinities live); and in Istoria Peredur, where it grows at the boundary of the worlds of life and death, and clearly exists in both.”
Tributes and poetry from the Celtic past describe the relationship of the Celts to their sacred trees. It was through trees that the people connected to the spirit of their land as well as through the kings who ruled and lived at the center.