Introduction

Ancient alphabet

Eighteen trees, indigenous since the retreat of the last Ice Age, belong to an ancient tree lore that understood trees from a different perspective to ours. 3,500 years ago, throughout western Britain and much of Europe, the Celts used an oral tree lore sometimes known as the Tree Alphabet.

Oral tradition

Whilst not an alphabet as we might understand it (it was deliberately a spoken and not a written language), this Alphabet had eighteen tree-letters, each letter represented by a different tree, each of which referenced specific botanical, mathematical, musical, poetical, mythologic, geodetic and astronomical properties. Although the oral Celtic tradition died out under Roman influence, clues to its significance remain.

 

Stone calendars

In many stone circles, such as Callanish and the recumbent variety of the North East, clues to their significance remain. The Tree Alphabet employed a similar calendrical system to the stone circles, and developed the specific significance of these months with tree-letters. The celtic year contained not twelve, but thirteen months. These months, each the same period of twenty-eight days, referenced a consonant of the Alphabet.

Letters & lore

The five vowels of the alphabet, each also represented by a tree, form not a period (like the months), but a point of the year. These points refer to the solstices and equinoxes. The Celtic year, with a total of 364 days, required an extra day (possibly the ‘and a day’ frequently found in folklore) to complete itself. This missing day resulted in its eighteen ‘plus one’ tree-letters, the significance of which hints at the underlying weave of metaphor in the druidic tradition of the Celtic peoples.

Purpose

The purpose of this site is twofold:

• to provide information on the Tree Alphabet, that relates botanical to mythological reference for an older audience and
• for schools to promote creative engagement with woodland.