Oh Ireland: The Emerald Isle

Free week was a blast. Amy Smith and I decided that we were going to go to Ireland for our free week. It was just a gorgeous country and a real testament to God's handiwork. We flew into Dublin and stayed there most of the time. The food was great and we went to a few pubs to get a real taste for the Irish food such as Irish stew an Shepherd's pie which were my favorites. We got in from our plane really late so it was a little nerve racking to be walking around the city of Dublin at 1 in the morning trying to find our youth hostel, but we made it there safely. One of the coolest things we saw in Dublin was bog men in Ireland's history museum. They were these people who were sacrificed by the Norwegian kings to the gods and then had their bodies thrown in the nearby bogs where they were perfectly preserved. One of the bog men that we saw had his organs intact as well as a full head of curly red hair and a beard and mustache as well as fingernails. They looked like they could come to life at any moment. There is a lot of Viking history in Ireland, in fact the most well preserved Viking settlement was found in Dublin, but to my horror I found out that the government was too interested in building there city hall that they bulldozed it. Theystill have a lot of Viking artifacts that we got to see in the museum which was really interesting for me to see because often in history one does not hear to too much about the Scadinavian history beside the fact that the Vikings were feirce seamen who often pillaged the towns of Europe. While we were in Ireland, Amy and I took a day tour to Giant's Causeway, Belfast, Derry, and a fisherman rope bridge over the Irish sea. The rope bridge was the most exciting part, however it was rather narrow and was easily blown around with the strong winds. Walking across was crazy, but so worth it. Derry was a beautiful little port town, with a huge wall wrapped around it like Nurnberg. They still had the English cannons up on the walls from the revolt that occured in the town in the 1900s. We also went to Galway while in Ireland, which was another little quaint port town and apparently the home town to the cladaugh symbol. We also we to a cemetry we found while walking outside the town with graves as old as from the 1600s. Most of the graves were marked with tall celtic crosses. We also found a well that supposedly was St. Augustine's well that had cured the town people's eye and ear diseases once they prayed and drank of the water. it was really close to the shore line of the Atlantic so at high tide the well was submerged in water. We stayed in Galway one night before going back to Dublin for our flight out. All in all it was a wonderful trip with only a few bumps in the road. Amy and I were very blessed.

This is the writing I found in the Irish museum

Ogham is read bottom to top and sometimes wraps up and over the stone along the edge. The key to deciphering the Ogham writing was found in orthodox bilingual inscriptions.
As you will have noticed, there are several letters missing from the Latin alphabet shown above: F, J, K, P, V, X and Y. The same letters are missing from the newly re-arranged Ogham alphabet. This probably means that the linguist who designed the Ogham alphabet was selective in chosing only those Latin letters which made the cabalistic calculations and arrangement possible. The V had replaced the B and the F; the I replaced the J and Y; the C and Q replaced the K; the B, a labial, took the pace of P (also a labial), the character X was used for the later Ogham diphthong EA, but in the Ogham script sometimes is written as KS. It is intesting to note that Q-Celtic has no F, J or P. Neither is there a P in Arabic. Only a few words in Basque start with F, which letter may be a quite recent addition to this language; the V, C, Y and Q still do not exist in Basque, and the Basque X represents "sh".
The reason why all 15 consonants are listed first in the alphabet and the 5 vowels following, has to do with the special arrangement of the words in the monk's dictionary. The primary organization of their dictionary is according to the consonants. Half of the Basque language is made up of words starting with vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV, sometimes VCCV) and it is mainly this half of the language which the monks used in the construction of the Romance languages and English. These words were then arranged according to the first consonants in the words, each consonant was then subdivided again into 25 VCV combinations such as under D: ada, ade, adi, ado, adu; eda, ede, edi, edo, edu; ida, ide ..... etc. Under each such VCV were then listed all those words with their translations which started with these three letters. This arrangement is still the best way for us to decode Ogham writing
Ogham translation requires the following steps:
- Step 1. Transliterate the Ogham characters into our Latin letters,
- Step 2. Replace the letters c, q, v, w, y with equivalent Basque letters, c and q become k, v becomes b, the y becomes i.
- Step 3. Arrange these corrected letters into the VCVCV format, placing dots where vowels are missing,
- Step 4. Fit these letters into the VCV formula,
- Step 5. List the various meanings underneath each VCV,
- Step 6. Arrange the hidden sentence.
The best way to explain the process is with a few examples of real Ogham inscriptions, take for instance:
"Cunovato".(Macalister #11.)
Step 1. The middle part of the inscription was badly damaged, but after much study Dr. Jost Gippert at Frankfurt University decided that it should read:
"Cunavato"
Step 2. All Ogams in Ireland are based on the Basque language, however, Basque does not have a "C" or a "V", so the inscription will now read
"Kunabato"
Step 3. When fitting the letters in the VCVCVCVCV format, it appears that only one, the first vowel, is missing, which must therefore be represented by a dot. The inscription to be translated now reads:
".kunabato".
Step 4. There are four consonants so this VCVCVCVCV line is then broken up by hyphens into four three-letter VCV's in which the V's on either side of the hyphens are the same (called interlocking): VCV1-V1CV2-V2CV3-V3CV, which therefore represents four words:
.ku-una-aba-ato
Step 5. With the preliminaries out of the way, the next step in decoding an Ogham inscription is to list the possible meanings underneath each VCV. In the case of the one missing vowel, all five possibilities must be tried (aku, eku, iku, oku, uku) as follows:

(aku) una aba ato
to incite boredom priest tow
to stimulate annoyance occasion tug boat
to rent, lease cowherd slingshot to arrange
acoustics fatigue advantage to seize

(eku) dull rower embellish
equator, worried almost to solve
peace of mind shade come!

(iku) branches shirt
to touch, to visit
flag, motto, watchful

(oku)
fertile field

(uku)
stable, falsify
go bad, smelly
Step 6. To discover the hidden sentence we must match up the words which obviously belong together, starting with the complete VCV's. For instance take the pair aba and ato and immediately out pops priest and come!, "the priest says: Come!". Why would he say come!? "To stimulate" (aku) your "boredom" (una). The translation of CUNAVATO therefore is:
"The priest will stimulate your boredom; come!" The completed words are: akuilatu (to stimulate) unadora (boredom) abade (priest) ator! (Come!). That is exactly what one would expect a missionary to say, it's his job.
Occasionally more than one reasonable meaning appears in which case we have a problem. Lay this work aside and return to it later; often new insight will be obtained and the proper translation decided upon. In the following pages you will see hundreds of decodings and learn that applying the Ogham formula is not an exact science. Guessing the mood of the monk who made up the word can be fun
A second example.
Now I will decode an Ogham inscription which has two vowels missing (Macalister # 364):
Step 1. barcuni
Step 2. barkuni
Step 3. .bar.kuni
Step 4. .ba-ar.-.ku-uni
Step 5. Three VCV's have a vowel missing. Each of those represents five VCV's e.g. .ba can be aba, eba, iba, oba or uba. Go to the VCV dictionary and list the possible meanings under each of these five VCV's. Do the same with .ar and .ku The last one, uni, is complete and only has a few possible meanings.
Step 6. When assembling the sentence built into the inscription, keep in mind who the people were that carved it. The words that pop out immediately are "evangelist" and "priest" under eba, which goes together with "prayer" under are: "the evangelist's prayers" . What do they do? They give peace of mind, under eku. The sentence therefore reads: "The evangelist's prayers (give you) general peace of mind". The four words completed are then: ebanjelari (evangelist) arren (prayer) ekurutasun (peace of mind) unibertsal (general).
FORFEDA, .bo-or.-.fe-eda;
.bo ebo eboluzionatu to develop
or. ori ori that
.fe ife ifernuko infernal
eda eda edabe potion, fabrication
Develop that infernal fabrication!
Notice how the word "forfeda" breaks up into four three-letter VCV roots, ebo-ori-ife-eda, each composed of vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV), with the vowels interlocking to form a chain of interdependent roots. This interlocking is the main characteristic of Ogham writing, is basic to all Ogham inscriptions and is indispensible in deciphering. Any missing (purposely removed) vowels in the words analysed, are represented by a dot until identified. Forfeda symbols are never eliminated. The monks later embellished this word to "Foirfeadha", to make it look as if the word had originated with the "Celtic" language, which is characterized by an excess of unnecessary vowels and h's. Some remarks in the Auraicept pertain to the creation of Forfeda characters such as:
IN LEBOR OGHAIM. in.-.le-ebo-oro-oga-ahi-im.; (5465 etc)

in. ina inauguratu to innovate
.le ale alegiñez carefully
ebo ebo eboluzionatu to develop
oro oro orobateko similar
oga oga ogasun wealth
a.i ahi ahituezin timeless
im. imi imitazio character
Innovate by carefully developing a similar wealth of timeless characters.
(Note: there is no break in the interlocking vowels, even though the text is broken into three "words".)
A third example.
The decoding of the more complicated Ogham inscriptions is difficult to fit into the internet restrictions, however, the reader now has the idea how decoding is done. My third example is considerably larger and will therefore be presented in a different manner, which has the disadvantage of not being able to show how the missing vowel is recovered, but this is difficult to avoid.
Step 1.
Bladnach cogradedena
and
Bladnach cuilen
(McManus, page 132). Macalister #1086, 1949, shows the second word as Cogracetena, which is incorrect. Both inscriptions are found on a bronze hanging bowl, likely an incense burner, dug up from a swamp in County Kerry. "They are inscribed along the upper surface of the rim and on one of the escutcheons" (McManus 7.6)

Step 2. Bladnak kogradedena and Bladnak kuilen.
Step 3. .B.lad.nak. .kog.radedena and .B.lad.nak. .kuilen
Step 4. .B.-.la-ad.-.na-ak. .ko-og.-.ra-ade-ede-ena, and .B.-.la-ad.-.na-ak. .ku-ile-en.
Step 5. This time I place the given VCV's along the left border:

Bladnak:
.B. abe abe cross
.la ela ela story
ad. ade adelatu to prepare
.na ena ena that
ak. aka akabu ultimate, superior

kogradedena:
.ko ako akorduan euki to remember
og. ogi ogizatitze breaking of the bread
.ra ira iragan to suffer
ade ade adelatu to prepare
ede ede edergi to confide in
dena dena Deuna Lord
Step 6. The story of the Cross prepares us for that ultimate remembrance while preparing for the breaking of the bread (for His) suffering (while we) confide in the Lord.
kuilen:
.ku eku ekurutasun peace of mind
ile ile ilezin everlasting
en. ene eneganatu to come over me
The story of the cross prepares me for that ultimate everlasting peace of mind (which will) come over me

Rating The Consonants...
In analyzing Ogham inscriptions and names or words, especially those from which too many vowels have been removed, it may be helpful to know which consonants are easier to decode than others. I devised a rating system which I found helpful. It involves writing down all the possible VCV combinations and then counting only those which are found in Aulestia's dictionary. For instance take "F":
afa efa ifa ofa ufa
afe efe ife ofe ufe
afi efi ifi ofi ufi
afo efo ifo ofo ufo
afu efu ifu ofu ufu

Out of the 25 VCV possibilities of "F", only the six italicized VCV's are the first letters of existing Basque words: afa (pleasing, supper), ifa (north), ife (infernal, hell), ifi (from ibi, to be, to go), ofi (craftsman, official), ufa (panting, blowing, scornful). The rating of the consonant "F" is therefore 6, making it the second easiest of all letters to find meanings for. The ratings of all the consonants are as follows:
Ñ-5, F-6, J-7, NG-13, Z-17, B-18, M-18, D-20, G-20, S-21,
K-22, L-22, N-22, P-22, T-22, H-23, R+RR-46.
The use of the letter "R" in the inscriptions poses somewhat of a problem because no distinction is made between "R" and "RR", each having its own set of 23 VCV combinations. Also the large number of words associated with each combination of this letter make it sometimes difficult to select the appropriate word. The analysis of the "R" or "RR" is therefore usually kept to the last.

Wittenburg

Its been a while since I've updated, but I have not been in a place with good internet to do so. We were recently this past week in Luherstadt Wittenburg. Our youth hostel was right next to the church on which Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses. The door is now cast in bronze with the 95 theses etched in the doors.This is the church in which Luther is buried. We went to Luher's house while we were there. Seeing his living room in its original state from when Luther and Catherine first decorated it as well as seeing Luther's brewery made Luther seem more realistic then a glorified reformer. The museum in his house had hundreds of Luther's writings and sermons as well as some of his monk robes and pastoral robes. His burial mask was also on display which was a litle weird to look at knowing that this was Luther's face at his time of death. The town of Wittenburg is really small, you could walk from on end to the other in 20 minutes. It was really nice to stay in a smaller town because you get to see the real culture of German people and not just the tourist or city culture. Almost none of the people spoke English there,so I was able to practice and learn more German. Overall, i really loved Wittenburg.

Dachau - Concentration Camp and Memorial

Tuesday we went to Dachau Germany where the first concentration camp was opened. We were all somber as we walked trough the iron gate the said "Work hard for your freedom." The Germans saw the Jews as lazy and paracites that leached all their wealth from society, so they had this saying all over the camp. All the buildings on site were built by the prisoners there. The gates opened up into a huge graveled area. Most of the bunkhouses had been leveled, but there were two left standing. the main house used by the Germans as a headquaters and punishment house was turned into a museum that told the stories accounted by the prisoners about their life and often death in the camp and even of their life after being liberated from the camp by American troops. Just outside the camp is two crematoriums. They have a room for where they would take them and have them strip so that they could sanitize their clothes, then they would led th prisoners into a waiting room and then into the gas chambers, where the unsuspecting prisoners would be killed by toxic gases. The bodies would then be dragged into the next room where they would then take them into the room with four ovens for cremation. There are two separate memorials erected on the grounds, one for all the Jews that died at the camp and the other is for all those that died or suffered there with a cross erected in the center of it. Seeing the camp in person makes you sick to think that 60,000 people died there.

Nurnberg: home at last

Hey, I'm back in Nuremburg. I arrived at about 6 today and was super excited to be back, it felt like coming home. I wanted to give a bit of an update and also go into some detail about some of the things I mentoned earlier. After leaving Rome, traveled to Tuscany and passes the little town of Pisa seeing the leaning tower of Pisa that made the tiny town so well known. When we arrived. we stayed in a town that had two levels. One was in the mountains and the other in the valley. We were staying in the one that was in the valley, but we took a gondola to the top town where we found a castle as well as a bell town. The castle was open to the public so we went inside and sat down in the center of the walls and discussed what we had seen, prayed for the trip and the things we saw and the people we encountered. We ended the time with songs of praise and then went and got some gelato. By the way, Gelato is a really creamy European ice cream that we all get every time we visit a new town. From Tuscany, we traveled to Revenna where we saw a lot of Basilicas. One of them was built by Emperor Justinian of the Byzantine Empire. The inside was covered with golden mosaic tiles from floor to ceiling, and outside Justinians basilica thre is a tomb with was built for the daughter of Theoderic but she was never buried there because she died while traveling abroad, but her cousins and brothers were buried there instead. Theoderic's daughter was a Christian so the tomb was covered in mosaics depicting the chi-ro symbol as well as events in Christ's life.

Rome, Blogna, Revenna, Geneva

SO...a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. I flew into Rome, Italy on Saturday and stayed at the Medici hotel three nights. In which time, I visited the Pantheon, saw more fountains then I could imagine, went to a couple of Catecombs, swam in the Mediteranean, explored the Roman ruins at Ostica, saw the Colosseum, visited the Roman Forum and where Caesar gave his famous speech at the death of Julius Caesar and went inside the prison there that held both Paul and Peter, climbed the Spanish steps, explored the Vatican and St Peters Cathedral holding many fine works of art including several by Rafael and Michaelangelo, and enjoyed a few gelatos with good friends. I was absolutley overwelming so see so much art and history. My favorite was the Colosseum, it gave me chills to realize that I was standing and walking where people of the most powerful country stood so many years ago. The movie Galdiator was running through my head. I walked and saw what Paul and Peter once did and went down into the main prison where they were held. The Vatican had piles of famous pieces of art and statues that some were stored in rooms because they did not have enough room to put them all. My favorite thing to see in the Vatican was the painting of the Last Judgement and where Adam and God are touching fingers. To see things that I grew up studying as a kid was so thrilling and overwelming. I also loved Ostica because you were allowed to explore the Roman ruins as you pleased to. We found an underground tunnel system that was loads of fun to explore. We discovered beautiful mosaics and frescos, saw the amplitheater and stood on its stage, as well as found steam rooms for baths and public restrooms. It was all so great. I even got to go down into ancient Catecombs from the 1st century AD. It was crazy to see rows and rows of shelves that held the bodies of martyered Christians and to see the names and Chrtian sybols eteched in the walls as well as beautiful frescos in the underground chapels. After visiting Rome, we took a bus to Blogna and Revenna where we explored the town and went to some old bacilicas of the Christian Chruch from the Byzantine Empire and an Arian church which was set up by the king of the Ostrogoths, Theodoric, at the time. From there we have continued taking the bus back to Germany. I am now in Switzerland, and it is just gorgeous here. The Alps are amazingly beautiful, words could not describe nor pictures justify. We drove throught the Alps for 6 hours today. We went through tunnels that stretched for ten miles. We are currently staying at a hotel in Geneva and will be seeing Calvin's church tomorrow as it is his 500th Birthday. I'll keep you updated.

Fun, Food, and Fair

The other night we went to a folk fest in a nearby town in Germany. People were dressed up in their traditional German dress: the guys in their hats, white shirts, and suspenders, and the girls in their flower dresses. Of course, there were about four different beer gardens there, and everyone was drunk and singing and dancing to drinking songs. It was a lot of fun. There were candy nuts, and pretzels three times the size of you head, buttered mushrooms, and crepes. The rides were the typical ferris wheel and bumper cars as well as this ball that you sit it and then get pull back and catapulted into the sky like a slingshot. there is a camera in the ball so that it videotapes your fae as you ride the ride. It was hilarious to see the look on the peoples' faces as they went flying in the air and came speedy back down to earth. I munched on a pretezel and nuts as I watched the German bands play and the people dance on the tables with their pint size steins and sing there songs. It was definitely a great German cultural experience.

Germany for the Summer

I am so excited to be studying in Germany for the summer. a group of us from Moody flew into Munich on a nine hour flight with a four hour lay over in London in between on Sunday May 31st. We took a bus from Munich to Nuremberg, where we will be staying in a castle that was once used by the Holy Roman Emperors. During the two hour bus trip, we saw a lot of the countryside of Germany and some of the forests that surround the town. Everything is just so beautiful and yet quaint. The houses all look Tudor style and are either white, cream, or a light shade of brown with orange tiled roofs. They are all connected and built on the hillsides surrounding a ornate church some large others small. We two guides throughout the time we are here who are here to help us with learning the culture and the language as well as giving us opportunities to see new places in Germany. We started classes on Monday (I have Hermeneutics) which last all week from 9 to 5. Afterwards, we go out in groups and explore the town. the castle walls surround Nuremberg three miles out from the center. the youth hostel we are staying in is actually the castle stables with the castle behind us. There are some drawings on the walls that date to the 1400s and most of the original architecture of the building is original. I never thought I would be doing homework in a castle. The people of Germany are really friendly and our guides are already teaching us how to communicate with the locals to help us get by with the basic needs. The coolest thing about Nuremberg is that they have farmer's market in the square Monday through Friday with fresh produce, the best gingerbread ever, and other trinkets and goodies. There are also two towering beautiful churches here. There is St. Sebaldus which is the Lutheran headquarters for Germany and St. Lorenzo which is a gorgeous Gothic cathedral. Well I'll keep you updated.