Ogma

Ogma, Oghma, Ogmae, Ogme. Orator-warrior of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and one of its three principal champions along with Lug Lámfhota and the Dagda. Ogma is also the patron, perhaps of divine origin, of poetry and eloquence and the fabled inventor of the ogham alphabet, philological cognate of his name. So esteemed is his eloquence that he sometimes bears the nickname or sobriquet of Cermait [honey-mouthed], which occasionally causes him to be confused with a son of the Dagda of that name. Ogma may also bear the sobriquet of Grianainech [sun-countenance]. Elatha is usually named as his father, with Eithne (1) as his mother, and the Dagda a brother. His wife Étan, daughter of Dian Cécht, gives him the sons Tuireann and Cairbre mac Ethne the satirist.

In Cath Maige Tuired [The (Second) Battle of Mag Tuired] and in the actions leading up to the battle, Ogma plays a leading role. At Lug Lámfhota's first entrance to the Tuatha Dé court, Ogma engages him in a contest of strength requiring that the young hero throw a flagstone over the side of the royal hall; Ogma loses. During the oppressive reign of the ill-starred Bres, Ogma is humiliated by having to do manual labour, carrying firewood. During the battle Ogma engages Indech the Fomorian, although texts vary as to who killed whom.

The similarities between the name Ogma and that of Ogmios, the Gaulish god of eloquence, suggest an affinity that commentators have been hard-pressed to delineate. The early 20th-century scholars Rudolf Thurneysen and Anton van Hamel disputed any link between Ogmios and Ogma.

Bibliography

See Anton van Hamel , ‘Aspects of Celtic Mythology’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 20 (1934), 207–48.