Ogham Tuesday: Saille/Willow

Willow: Dreaming, Perceiving, Bewitching

Saille/Willow is the fourth letter of the Ogham alphabet.

This week we have another wet wood. Willow is closely associated with Manannán Mac Lir, the Irish god of the seas, the Otherworld, magic, and stuff. In folklore, it’s twigs and branches of Willow that are often used for dowsing, or finding sources of underground water to tap.

Willow can be bent to your will. That’s why it’s popular for fashioning baskets, traps, and other wicker items. It’s bendable nature makes it excellent for wands, as well. Perhaps its flexibility bolsters it’s magic in that respect.

The fourth letter of the Irish ogham alphabet is Saille, representing the /s/ sound. Both the modern Irish and Scots Gaelic remain similar to the older name. It is possibly a cognate of the Latin salix, which refers to the Willow tree.

It has connections with both life and death. The word-oghams associated it with Willow speak to its grey pallor and to bees, which pollinate the tree and keep the species alive and flourishing.

Willow speaks of intuition, of that hunch or knowing in your gut that something is so. In a reading, it indicates a time of exploring deeper emotions and your intuition. It might be a time for trance work and dreaming.

These ways of knowing are just as valid as reasoning, study, and logic. Manannán can be a sure, safe, and powerful guide for you in your explorations into these deeper magics if you ask him.