Beyond the Door
Page 28
THIS ENDS BOOK ONE OF THE ADVENTURE.
The story continues in Book Two.
A NOTE TO THE READER
Ogham was a system of writing that developed in Ireland in the fourth century. It looks like a series of hatch marks that cross or are joined to a central line. There are twenty letters in the Ogham alphabet. The hatch marks were easy to carve on wood or stone, and that’s where Ogham is usually found. The marks read in the same way that a tree grows, from bottom to top. You can still find stones in Ireland, England, Wales, and Scotland carved with Ogham letters.
Many people call Ogham the “Tree Alphabet” and believe that each letter is associated with a particular tree. For example, the first letter in the Ogham alphabet is Beith, which is associated with the birch tree. Trees are very important in Irish mythology, and ancient Irish law had severe penalties for anyone who unlawfully felled or damaged a tree. A medieval document called the Ogam Tract says that the letters of Ogham represented types of trees important in Irish mythology and life. The tract also says that the Tuatha de Danaan, a race of people from Irish mythology, invented Ogham script.
Where did Ogham really come from? The answer is unclear. Some scholars believe it came from a system of tallies used for accounting. Other scholars believe it was a means of secret communication, employed so that Roman-British forces couldn’t understand what was being communicated. And still others believe it was invented by early Christian communities.
THE CODE
By using the key provided here, you can decipher the Ogham script that runs along the bottom of many pages of this book. (Note that in authentic Ogham, the marks read from bottom to top; here, the marks read left to right. Also, Ogham would traditionally translate into primitive Irish; here, it translates into English.) Lastly, the script has been adapted to include the letters J, K, P, V, W, X, Y, and Z to make reading the code easier. Below each Ogham mark is the tree name in Celtic as well as in English, followed by the alphabet letter or letter cluster it represents.
hanks to Debra Murphy at Idylls Press, who loves myth and first encouraged this story, and to Howard Reeves, who saw a glimmer of potential and was determined to give the story a larger readership. He has been a wise guide on this book’s journey.
Thanks as always to Sandra Bishop, my tireless agent, who believes, as I do, that sometimes “the best way to show people true things is from a direction that they had not imagined the truth coming,” which is a quote from Neil Gaiman’s acceptance speech at the Mythopoeic Awards and something I believe wholeheartedly.
And the greatest appreciation to my family, who lived through countless revisions, and to my earliest readers: Deb Donahoe, Nat and Nancy Smith, Christine Bian, Michael McCain, Dennis and Brennan McQuerry. Without you there would be no book. And to Claire McQuerry, for bringing me to Oxford, where I first met the Greenman.