"Dulaman" 
Searles O'Dubhain
searles@summerlands.com
Mon Oct 25 09:09:11 1999
I was recently asked what "Dulaman" (phonetic spelling), the title of a popular song means.  It means "Creator," who was usually called An Dúileamh or An Dúiileamhain by the Irish.  "An" represents "the" in both An Dúileamhain ("The Creator") and An Dúlra ("The World").  Offering of the dúile was tantamount to recreating the world when done as ritual sacrifice. It is thought that this name predates Christian usage and is a part of the way in which the Druids claimed "to have created the world."*p*In the "Scholar's Primer" from the Book of Ballymote, the influence of one letter or Ogham upon another includes the powers of gender, vowel or consonant. It also gives some of their kennings as attributed to three Druids: Morann Mac Main, CúChulainn and Mac ind Oic. To me, the applicability of "dúil" to letters and to also meaning a book is a parallel to the idea that the world was created from elements and spoken words in much the same way that a story or incantation is created and empowered verbally. The word 'duille" for "leaves" from a tree probably became applied to books out of  this usage as well.  Words and names have a power that derives from the powers of the letters and orignal concepts to create.  In ritual, such things were sacrificed or offered (as prayers, curses, blessings) as direct parallels to actual "elements" and living things.*p*Perhaps we can look at the structure of these words, letters, leaves and Ogham (in a subsequent message) and discover just how it is that "elements" or "words" can create worlds and imply a Creator?*p*Searles*br*