Ogam Revisited

To many in Academia Ogam is a dirty word.

When it is pointed out that in the glorious Book of Ballymote there are listed at least sixteen different types of Ogam scripts, the answer is that it is really a sort of tic-tac-toe that twelfth century Irish monks played when they should have been paying attention to Matins.

Still all across the globe there are rocks, utensils and tools with scratchings that experts can decipher as Ogam. From Scandia to middle Europe to the Mediterranean to Spain and Portugal to Mexico to the US and the Orient and back to England they can be found in profusion.

And when compared with the finger sign language of many lands, alphabets like the sign language of the American Indians, they are so similar to Ogam it is hard not believe that they are not related.

In this novel written to amuse but also to promote a belief, an Ogam rock enters the life of a good, little man. Albert, though by nature weak and inoffensive, in his search for Ogam finds there is truth to his belief that the has a ‘Lion’s Heart.’