LINKS BETWEEN OGMA, OGMIOS AND OGAM:

THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF OGMA (2)

ALAN GRIFFITHS

My previous note on Ogma, Ogmios and ogam (http://www.scribd.com/doc/19073388/The-

Origin-of-the-name-of-Ogma) included a reference to the gloss cited in the Dictionary of the
Irish Language: oghma .i. fulang. I suggested that the interpretation fulang, ‘prop, support’
might be connected with the common comparison of a hero or leader to a support or pillar. At
the same time I pointed to Ogma’s possible association with Ogmios and Herakles and the
classical image of Herakles supporting the universe.
The concept of ‘divine support’, however, may also be reflected in words for ‘god’ in
Germanic languages. In an Anglo-Saxon context, proper names like Oswald, Oswiu, Osric
and Oswine contain the element os- meaning ‘god’, but unfortunately the word os is not
recorded as such. In Old Icelandic a related form of the word, ás, does occur independently,
and is found in the compound Ásgarðr, ‘enclosure of the gods’. The Proto-Germanic form of
the word is reconstructed as *ansuz (well-known from discussions of the name of the a-rune).
Various suggestions have been put forward as to the basic meaning of *ansuz. It has been
associated, for instance, with Indo-European *asu ‘breath, creative power’. It has also been
compared, however, to Gothic ans, ‘beam’, the assumed Germanic form of which, *ansaz,
differs from *ansuz only by the ablaut in the suffix. The meaning ‘beam’ brings us back to the
idea of a god as a ‘support’, and in particular as a support of the universe as well as of his
people, although some have suggested an association with the idea of divine images being
literally in the form of poles or pillars.
At a mundane level, the proverbial Pillars of Herakles were probably linked to the mountains
either side of the gateway to the Mediterranean. On the northern side of this gateway,
however, there was a famous temple of Herakles’s Phoenician counterpart, Melqart, situated
at Cadiz (Phoenician Gadir, Greek Gádeira). The temple of Melqart at Tyre is said to have
contained two bronze pillars. Possibly, there may also have been two similar pillars in the
temple at Gadir.
None of these considerations brings us any closer to an etymology for the name of the Irish
god Ogma. Perhaps the interpretation of oghma as fulang, ‘support’, was simply a description
of the god in his role as ‘support, pillar’.