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Idad

unknown; almost certainly the yew

What was here before all of it and will be here after

Ogham glyphs are shown in Unicode, laid out left to right. On a standing stone the letters run bottom to top along the arris, so this row is a convenience rather than a facsimile.

Sound
i /i/
Position
20
Group
Aicme Ailme
Root meaning
no secure etymology, but the kennings and the gloss both point at ibar, yew
Medieval tree gloss
yew (the one vowel gloss the kennings actually support)
Unicode
U+1694
Timing
Centuries
Yes / No
Yes, on a timescale longer than yours

Upright

  • the yew
  • great age
  • endurance
  • ancestry
  • what outlasts
  • the end of a sequence
  • longevity
  • the churchyard

In the rune poems

sinem fedo

oldest of trees

Bríatharogam Morainn mac Moín · Idad
caínem sen

fairest of the ancients

Bríatharogam Maic ind Óc · Idad
lúth lobair

energy of an infirm person — the reading is uncertain

Bríatharogam Con Culainn · Idad

The vowel gloss that works

None of the five vowel names is a secure native tree, and Idad is the closest any of them comes.

The etymology is not recoverable: there is no confident derivation of idad, and like Edad it may have been shaped to fit its neighbour. But unlike Edad, the kennings support the gloss. Sinem fedo, oldest of trees, and caínem sen, fairest of the ancients, both describe extreme age, and the tree tradition assigns ibar, the yew.

That is a rare alignment in the vowel series, and it is why Idad is usually treated as the yew with more confidence than the etymology alone would justify. The name cannot confirm it. The kennings and the gloss agree, which is the next best thing.

Oldest of trees, literally

Sinem fedo is not a poetic exaggeration. Yews are the longest-lived trees in Europe and the margin is not close.

Several in Britain and Ireland are credibly over a thousand years old and some estimates run to two or three thousand. The difficulty is that they cannot be dated by ring count, because an old yew's heartwood rots away entirely and the tree survives on its outer shell — which also means the hollow trunk of an ancient yew is not a sign that it is dying.

The yew's churchyard association follows from that. It is often observed that Irish and British churchyard yews are older than the churches standing beside them, and the usual inference is that the tree marked a significant site before the church was built there. That inference is reasonable and is not the same as evidence of what the site was for.

Caínem sen is worth reading carefully. Sen means the old — old people as much as old things — so the phrase reaches past the tree toward ancestry. The fairest of the ancients is a compliment you would pay a person.

Five notches, and the end

Idad is five notches cut square across the stemline: the maximum count in the final position, and therefore the last letter the system can produce.

The alphabet stops here for a reason that is perceptual rather than symbolic. Reliable subitising — judging a quantity at a glance without counting — caps at about four or five for adults. Six parallel marks have to be counted deliberately, which defeats a script meant to be read off the edge of a stone by someone standing next to it.

Four positions times five counts closes the set at twenty, and everything after Idad had to be built differently. The forfeda that follow are composite shapes — loops, crosses, lattices — precisely because the counted-stroke system had nowhere left to go.

So the twentieth letter is where the design meets its own limit, and it is fitting that the letter sitting there means the oldest thing anyone knows.

The other yew letter

The Germanic rows also gave the yew a letter, and comparing them is instructive.

The Elder Futhark's Eihwaz is named for the yew, and the Old English stanza for its descendant Eoh describes a tree with rough bark, hard and fast in the earth, held up by its roots — an observation about the hollow trunk surviving on its outer shell.

Both alphabets independently noticed the same thing about the same tree: that it endures past the point where other things would have finished.

The Norse tradition adds an edge Idad does not have. Yew is poisonous in nearly every part, and it is the bow wood — the Icelandic kenning for its rune is bendr bogi, a bent bow. The Irish kennings stay entirely with age and do not mention either property.

That is a real difference in emphasis. Ireland's yew letter is about time. Scandinavia's is about time and weaponry.

In reading

Idad is what was here first and will be here after.

In a spread it marks the long-standing element: the tradition, the family, the arrangement or the person that predates the current situation and will outlast it. Its timescale is not human, and in timing questions it reads very long.

Caínem sen gives it the ancestral sense directly. This is the letter for what has been inherited rather than made, and for the people who came before.

The position matters too. Idad is the last letter, the fifth notch, the end of what the system can count. It carries a genuine sense of completion of a sequence — not an ending in the sense of a death, but the point at which a structure has been filled out and anything further requires a different method.

Modern sets give yew with death and rebirth attached, which follows Graves. The kennings say age and ancestry, and the difference is worth keeping: they praise the yew for having lasted, not for dying well.

Questions to sit with

  • What in this situation was here before you and will still be here after?
  • Is this an ending, or the point where a structure is simply complete?
  • The kennings call it fairest of the ancients — a compliment you would pay a person. Who is that here?

Frequently asked questions

Almost certainly the yew, though the etymology is not recoverable. It is the one vowel where the kennings and the tree gloss agree: sinem fedo, oldest of trees, and caínem sen, fairest of the ancients, both describe extreme age, and the tradition assigns ibar, yew.

No. Yews are the longest-lived trees in Europe by a wide margin, with several in Britain and Ireland credibly over a thousand years old. They cannot be dated by ring count because an old yew's heartwood rots away entirely and the tree survives on its outer shell, so a hollow trunk is not a sign of dying.

Because it is five notches in the final position, the maximum the system can produce. Reliable subitising caps at about four or five, and six parallel marks must be counted deliberately, which defeats a script read off a stone edge. Four positions by five counts closes the set at twenty, and the forfeda that follow had to use composite shapes instead.

Both alphabets independently gave the yew a letter and both noticed its endurance — the Old English stanza describes a tree held up by its roots, an observation about the hollow trunk surviving on its outer shell. The difference is emphasis: the Norse tradition adds poison and the bow, while the Irish kennings stay entirely with age.

What was here first and will be here after: the tradition, family or arrangement that predates the situation and outlasts it. It reads very long in timing questions. Its position as the last letter also gives it a sense of a structure being complete rather than of something dying.

Ogham

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