Ogham Gort: the ivy letter, meaning, history and modern reading

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The letter Gort in the alphabet

Gort is the twelfth letter of the ogham alphabet and the second of the M group, the aicme Muine. It is written with two oblique strokes crossing the baseline, the drach, along which inscriptions were carved on the edge of standing stones. It writes the sound [g], as in “game”.

The roughly four hundred “orthodox” inscriptions that survive date mostly from the 4th to the 6th century CE and are found largely in southern Ireland. Gort is used there only to note personal names, nothing more. The links between letters and trees come from much later medieval manuscripts. Here are the reference points for the letter:

Reference	Detail
Rank	12th of the 20 main letters
Group (aicme)	Aicme Muine (M group): 2 strokes, oblique strokes crossing the baseline
Sound value	g
Tree or plant in the manuscripts	Ivy (according to the Auraicept)

The name and its meaning: what the sources say

In Old Irish, gort means “field” or “cultivated land”, a word that linguists compare with Celtic and Latin forms (hortus) and with the English garden, from an Indo-European root that evokes an enclosure. The name of the letter is therefore, very probably, that of an enclosed and cultivated space.

Medieval glossators, notably in the Auraicept na n-Éces (“the scholars’ primer”, a text whose core is often dated to the 8th century and which was copied into the Book of Ballymote around 1390), match Gort with ivy (edind). The text does not explain this choice: nothing in the sense of “field” naturally calls for ivy. It is an example of how the “tree” tradition was added after the fact to older letter names. The scholar Damian McManus, moreover, considers that only a small number of letter names plausibly designate trees.

The associated tree or plant

Common ivy (Hedera helix) is an evergreen climber that clings with small holdfasts without drawing sap from its support. It flowers late, from September to November, providing nectar to insects at a season when little remains; its black berries ripen in late winter. Leaves and berries are toxic if swallowed: do not use them in herbal teas or preparations.

For enthusiasts of Robert Graves’s “tree calendar” (1948), the month of Gort corresponds, in the most widespread version, to a period from late September to late October. This calendar is a modern construction, disputed by specialists.

The three portraits of the name (bríatharogam)

Three medieval lists, the bríatharogaim, associate each letter with a short, imagery-rich expression, sometimes called a “kenning”. For Gort, they evoke pasture and abundance, not ivy:

List	Old Irish expression	Approximate sense
Morann mac Moín	milsiu féraib	the sweetest of herbs
Mac ind Óc	ined erc	a place good for cows
Cú Chulainn	sásad ile	the satisfying of multitudes

These expressions are hard to translate: some may be corrupted, and the proposed translations are approximate. They are not reading instructions, only medieval images.

Modern divinatory reading

Modern ogham sets give Gort ivy as its emblem and read the letter as a figure of perseverance, attachment and spiral growth: what clings, what takes hold, slow progress. Other authors, starting from the sense of “field”, see in it rather a piece of land to cultivate, a project to tend.

The two readings are not mutually exclusive, but neither is ancient. They were born from the idea that the letters form a “tree alphabet”, popularised by Graves in The White Goddess (1948) and taken up in divination books from the 1980s onwards.

These meanings are modern: they come from ogham sets and books published from the late twentieth century onwards, and authors do not always agree. Nothing proves that ogham was used for divination in ancient Ireland.

A reflection exercise

Think of a project you have been tending for a long time. Note what supports it, then what may be stifling it. Draw Gort and ask yourself what in your life needs to be cultivated rather than pushed. The exercise invites you to look at how you sustain things; it says nothing about what will happen.

Frequently asked questions

Also read

The meanings mentioned belong to tradition and symbolism. They are neither promises of results nor medical advice. Back to Guide to Ogham.