At a glance

• Letter: D
• Tree: oak
• Place: letter 7 of the 20 original letters, the second of Aicme hUatha
• Written with: 2 strokes to the other side of the stem line
• Also known as: Duir, Dur
• Keywords: oak, strength, endurance, doorway, threshold, sacred trees, protection

Lore and history

In the medieval Irish texts, the Auraicept na nEces and In Lebor Ogaim record Dair as the second letter of Aicme hUatha, written with two strokes to the side of the stem line, and name the oak as its tree. The old Irish law tracts on trees, part of the Bretha Comaithchesa, placed the oak among the airig fedha, the noble or chieftain trees of the wood, set above the lesser shrubs and brambles for its size, its strength and its long life. Oak gave timber for halls and doorframes, and its presence in boundary markers and in the stone and wood ogham inscriptions themselves made it one of the trees most bound up with the alphabet's own memory of the Irish landscape.

In a reading

In modern ogham practice, Dair is drawn as a call to root down and hold steady: the strength to carry real weight and the endurance to outlast a long season. Many of us read the oak as a doorway tree, its great trunk standing like a threshold between what has been and what is coming, so Dair in a casting or a reading often marks a passage worth walking through rather than around. We turn to its spirit when we need the patience of something that grows slowly and lives long, and the quiet courage to stand firm exactly where we are planted.

Keep exploring

• Before it: Uath
• After it: Tinne
• All 25 ogham letters