If you haven't read the introduction to the first aicme, maybe go read that first and return, because today I'm just launching straight into the fourth aicme.
I associate Ailm with the winter, and from that, with Samhain, and then the rest of the aicme with winter and with the north, though again as far as I know there is no direct historical support for that. I'm also adding in some keywords that come from my personal understanding of each fid that I've developed in my studies, but again, these are to be taken as one person's opinion, not fact.
Ailm – All Timeliness
Spirit: a bearded, hunched over old man, but with trickster vibes. Long white beard, robes a dingy greyish white and faded dark green, bald, light colored eyes (possibly green-grey), walking with a staff. Reminiscent of Old Man Winter illustrations.
Keywords: a cry, a groan, a shout; branches creaking in wind and popping in ice; tip of your tongue, the moment before insight, brink of discovery; epiphany, eureka moment; clearing clutter out of the way to make room for insight, removing the extraneous so the pattern can be recognized; metacognition and self-improvement work; sovereignty and its importance; beginning of a legacy, head of a family, an important or exalted ancestor, a progenitor; ploughing metaphors, clearing away what will impede crops, readying the soil for planting, planning for the far future; looks to the far future but also the far past and recognizes the repeating patterns therein; certainty, integrity, clarity of purpose, a strong sense of self; applying knowledge and wisdom won through long experience and good judgement.
Onn – Onward Momentum
Spirit: androgynous, ash tree dryad
Keywords: movement, travel; going where you feel called, seeking your fortune, following your heart; heading towards one’s heart’s desire, toward self-actualization, self-realization, success; seeker, pilgrimage; take the good with the bad, the honey with the thorns; the continual work of study, or of relationships; buckling down for the long haul, perseverance, sustainability; building for the future; don’t take the path of least resistance, take the path that’s necessary and overcome obstacles as they appear, the only way out is through; moving with a clear goal/purpose even if the entire path is not yet clear; a need for action and movement instead of more strategizing, any way forward is better than stagnancy;
Uir – Unending Cycles
Spirit: grandmotherly, but a bit like the grandmother from the Halloweentown movies*, grey hair, light skin, brown eyes, seems almost human, but that “almost” is very key – no longer human but not distinctly one of the Dead, either. Crone Energy, but back still very straight and limbs very strong.
Keywords: half-wild places, useful “weeds”; living in harmony with your local ecosystem; land spirits and nature spirits; gardening and foraging; practicality, pragmatism, thrift, waste not want not, frugality, poverty; bodily death, graves, decay; ancestors, grief; untilled soil, a field left to lie fallow to renew the soil, crop rotation; our own fallow times, and rotation in our own lives to avoid burnout; slow earth cycles, the “longue durée”; nostalgia, honeyed memories, rose colored glasses; preparatory work, getting organized so you can do things later, getting ready to get ready; the inevitability of change and death, but also the inevitability of new life to take its place; reincarnation.
* Not kidding, unfortunately! Sometimes spirits just like a face we’ve already got in our heads, for aesthetic and associations. Which is why everyone sees the gods a little differently!
Edad – Ending Mundanity
Spirit: shifting between and blending two forms. First, a washer woman, a bit chubby but with dense muscles beneath, in wet clothes, with light brown hair and hazel eyes, her light complexion reddened by exertion. Second, a skeletal-thin feminine spectre with corpse-grey skin wearing wispy rags. Neither time was there blood, but she wasn’t actively washing. Very Washer at the Ford vibes.
Keywords: death, ghosts, ancestors, deathwork, hauntings; wisdom from those who have passed on, mediumship, spiritwork; entheogens and similar spiritual tools and practices; mystical or occult initiation, especially when sudden or unexpected; moving out of the realm of “normal” experiences and being forever marked as changed by this; nothing will ever be the same again; near death experiences and the epiphanies they bring; piercing the veil, the second sight; destruction of the old self to make way for the new, dismemberment healings, a need to leave your old ways behind; initiatory crisis; an unavoidable turning point or pivot point; important personal gnosis; the beginning of the path of a mystic or a witch.
Idad – Indelible Memories
Spirit: elderly looking feminine yew dryad, with berries in her long hair
Keywords: Old age, the process of growing old, and elders in your communities; infirmity, deathbed, the process of dying; ancestors and ancestor work; long-lived, long life, survival, endurance, permanence; death bringing only a new beginning; cemeteries and graveyards; sagely advice, wisdom and culture being passed down to younger generations, enduring folkways, the fragility of oral tradition; generational and family line talents, blessings, curses; genetic inheritance and epigenetics; inheritance of all types; maturity, guarding the future, looking to the past to plan for the future; look at the big picture; wait for the correct time to act; slow change and transitions; gateway to the lands of the dead; the truth of the past and of a life, as seen in retrospect, hindsight; reflection on one’s past to trace the patterns revealed; things coming to a final end, families that have died out, folkways that have been lost.
And that's the last one! Though I might do one on the forfeda, and I might share a few more lists later, if there's interest.