Meaning
Vine is the most foreign tree in the calendar: the grapevine is not native to Ireland, and the medieval link between the letter Muin and the vine is doubtful. The kenning of Morann is "strongest of effort", in Calder's translation, and the Auraicept's explanation praises the vine for growing aloft: "Highest of beauty is muin, that is, because it grows aloft, that is, a vine-tree". Graves' Vine month holds most of September, the time of the grape harvest elsewhere.
Our reading takes discernment and patient effort from this: people born in this month are read as refined and appreciative, weighing things before they commit. The reading is ours.
The letter
Muin is the first letter of the third group: one stroke across the stemline at a slant. Its Old Irish name muin means neck, wile or love, and the medieval kennings play on all three meanings. Both tracts gloss it as vine, fínemain, and so does O'Flaherty; ogham scholars treat the gloss as doubtful.
A tree from elsewhere
There is no Irish vine lore to tell. The medieval scholars knew the vine from books and from wine, not from Irish woods, which is part of why their gloss is doubted. We keep Graves' name for the month and say so.
In Graves' year
Vine runs from 2 to 29 September, the same in every list. The gemstone that tree-sign websites give it is modern, and our own old table gave it the hazel's stone by a row slip; the planets, animals and titles are modern too, and none is 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
- "Highest of beauty is muin, that is, because it grows aloft, that is, a vine-tree" (Calder 1917, p. 93) sourced
- The Ogam Tract's gloss
- the same tree (Calder 1917, p. 277) sourced
- O'Flaherty's gloss (1685)
- Muin, commonly Fineamhuin, the vine tree sourced
- How the letter is tied to the tree
- Doubtful: the tree is not native to Ireland and the name means something else disputed
- Colour and bird words for the letter (a medieval curiosity)
- Colour: mbracht, "variegated"; bird: mintan, "titmouse". Words that begin with the letter, like the tract's lists of churches; not the tree's colour or animal sourced
- Our reading
- The most foreign tree of the calendar: refined and appreciative, weighing things before committing. our construction
How the schools read it
- The medieval tracts
- The kenning "strongest of effort"; the Auraicept glosses the letter vine (fínemain).
- O'Flaherty, 1685
- Muin, commonly Fineamhuin, the vine tree.
- Graves, 1948
- The tenth month, 2 September to 29 September.
- Ogham scholarship
- muin means neck, wile or love; the vine is a doubtful gloss.
- Tree-sign websites
- The same dates; a planet, gemstone, animal and personality title, all modern. Not used here.
- EsoTerrier
- The most foreign tree of the calendar: refined and appreciative, weighing things before committing.
Claims about it
-
The vine was a tree of the Irish Ogham tradition.
disputedWhat the record shows: The grapevine is not native to Ireland, and the name muin means neck, wile or love. The medieval gloss is doubtful.
-
The vine's gemstone is amethyst.
falseWhat the record shows: A row slip in our own engine before October 2026: the hazel's stone moved down a line. All gemstones were dropped.
-
The Vine 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.
-
The Vine month has a traditional personality title.
falseWhat the record shows: The thirteen titles come from one website of the 2000s and were copied widely; nothing in Graves, Paterson or the medieval tracts supports them. We never use them.
