Meaning
Elder is a small, fast-growing tree that grows again readily when cut, white with flowers in early summer and dark with berries in autumn. The kenning of its letter is "intensest of blushes", in Calder's translation, and the Auraicept says: "The redness of shame is ruis, i.e., elder".
Our reading takes renewal from the tree, which closes Graves' year: people born in this month are read as independent and resourceful, at ease with endings and new starts, since what is cut back grows again. The reading is ours.
The letter
Ruis is the fifth letter of the third group: five strokes across the stemline at a slant. Its Old Irish name ruis means red or redness, and the kennings play on the colour; it is not a tree name. Both tracts gloss it as elder, trom, and so does O'Flaherty. Calder prints the kenning in two forms on the same page, rendering tinnem ruccae as "intensest of blushes" and tindi rucae as "an ingot of a blush". Our old engine drew this letter, by mistake, for 23 December.
The end of the year
Elder has no attested Irish month lore. Modern Pagan pages call it sacred to the Cailleach; that is a modern motif, not documented Irish tradition, and we do not use it.
In Graves' year
In Graves' calendar Elder runs from 25 November to 22 December, and 23 December is left over as his extra day. Most tree-sign websites and calculators, the Tree Council of Ireland's page among them, run Elder to 23 December instead and have no extra day, so a birthday on 23 December is Elder there and the extra day here. The planet, gemstone, animal and personality title of those websites are modern, after Paterson (1992) and later lists, and are not used here.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- The Auraicept's explanation
- "The redness of shame is ruis, i.e., elder" (Calder 1917, p. 93) sourced
- The Ogam Tract's gloss
- the same tree (Calder 1917, p. 277) sourced
- O'Flaherty's gloss (1685)
- Ruis, commonly trom, elder sourced
- How the letter is tied to the tree
- A medieval gloss: the name means something else sourced
- Colour and bird words for the letter (a medieval curiosity)
- Colour: ruadh, "red"; bird: rócnat, "small rook (?)". Words that begin with the letter, like the tract's lists of churches; not the tree's colour or animal sourced
- Our reading
- A tree that grows again when cut: independent and resourceful, at ease with endings and new starts. our construction
How the schools read it
- The medieval tracts
- The kenning "intensest of blushes"; the Auraicept glosses the letter elder (trom).
- O'Flaherty, 1685
- Ruis, commonly trom, elder.
- Graves, 1948
- The thirteenth month, 25 November to 22 December; Elder ends the day before his extra day.
- Ogham scholarship
- ruis means red or redness; the tree is a learned gloss.
- Tree-sign websites
- Elder to 23 December, with no extra day; a planet, gemstone, animal and personality title, all modern. Not used here.
- EsoTerrier
- A tree that grows again when cut: independent and resourceful, at ease with endings and new starts.
Claims about it
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The letter name Ruis means elder.
falseWhat the record shows: Ruis means red or redness. The elder is the medieval gloss on a name that is a colour.
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The elder is sacred to the Cailleach.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A modern Pagan motif, not documented Irish tradition. Not used.
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The Elder month belongs to an old Celtic calendar that the Druids kept.
falseWhat the record shows: No ancient or medieval source has a tree calendar or a tree for each birthday. The thirteen months are Robert Graves', set out in 1948.
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The Elder month has a traditional planet, element, gemstone and animal.
falseWhat the record shows: Modern additions: the planets are Helena Paterson's (1992), the rest come from later web lists that disagree with one another. None is medieval or in Graves as a set.
