Dalriada Celtic Heritage Trust:Mythological Deities - Crom
Cruaich
Mythological Deities
THE CHIEF OF THE MOUND
When Saint Patrick came to Ireland with his new faith, it is
recorded that he set about destroying all of the pagan idols. Chief
among these, according to the Book of Leinster, was that of Crom
Cruaich. His was a stone idol, encased in gold, surrounded by a
circle of twelve other stone idols that stood on the plain of Magh
Slecht in Co. Cavan. It was with Crom Cruaich that Saint Patrick
engaged in a druidical battle for supremacy.
Despite being referred to as the "chief idol" in Ireland,
worshipped right up until the coming of Saint Patrick, there is, in
fact, surprisingly little information recorded about this
mysterious figure, his cult or his followers. Certainly he does not
appear in any of the legendary sagas. The main references that we
have are to be found in Keating's History of Ireland, the Medieval
manuscript of the Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick, the Dindsenchus
(place lore of Ireland) and Leabhar Laignech, the twelfth century
Book of Leinster. None of these sources portray the idol in a very
favourable light. In fact, it is quite striking to note the
rhetoric used in all cases to describe the horrors of sacrifice
that were allegedly carried out in his name:
Here used to be
a high idol with many fights
which was named the Crom Cruaich
It made every tribe to be without peace.
To him without glory
They would kill their piteous, wretched offspring
with much wailing and peril
to pour their blood around Crom Cruaich (1)
I would like to offer some of my own interpretations as to who Crom
Cruaich was, in the hope of clearing away some of the mystery that
surrounds Crom, and to ascertain whether he really was the bad ogre
he is made out to be!
Some of the most important clues to the identity of this unknown
idol are to be found in his name. He is usually referred to as Crom
Cruaich. Crom means bent or crooked; cruaich means a stack, heap or
mound of some kind that has been artificially constructed (as
opposed to a natural knoll or hill). D'Arbois suggests an
alternative for cruaich as "bloody", derived from cru meaning
blood. Hence he argues that Crom Cruaich means the "bloody
crescent". I am not convinced of his argument, but I do not
entirely dismiss it. Given the nature of Crom, the word cruaich
might have been chosen as a deliberate pun, to form an association
between this god of the mound and the bloody rites that were
supposedly carried out, thus helping to discredit his worship even
further.
You may be wondering why this idol is referred to as Crom, the
Crooked One. It is said that he got this name after being dealt a
magical blow by St. Patrick, causing the stone idol to bend over
towards the west, as if ready to topple. There is also quite
possibly a Fomorian association here, the misshapen beings of Irish
mythology. Here is how the tale is told in the Tripartite Life:
"Thereafter went Patrick over the water to Mag Slecht, a place
wherein was the chief idol of Ireland, to wit, Cenn Cruaich,
covered with gold and silver, and twelve other idols about it,
covered in brass. When Patrick saw the idol from the water....he
raised his hand to put Jesus' crozier upon it and did not reach it,
but it bowed westwards to turn on its right side...and the earth
swallowed the twelve other images as far as their heads...." (2)
The symbolism of the earth swallowing up the stones is interesting,
and I will be returning to this later.
There is, however, another meaning for crom, which is quite
different. It also means a circle, while cromleac means an ancient
standing stone. On Magh Slecht there were twelve such cromleacs,
three groups of four, arranged in a circle, with the central
thirteenth cromleac representing Crom himself. The meaning of Magh
Slecht is also interesting. Magh is a plain. Slecht comes from the
Old Irish slechtaim, meaning to prostrate, to go on your knees.
Hence it is referred to as the Plain of Adoration.
The idol is also referred to in the Book of Leinster as crin, or
withered: "He was their god, the withered Crom with many mists".
Crin refers to the withering and decay of vegetation at the
beginning of winter, and also possibly to the powers of blight,
which were greatly feared. It is recorded that tributes were paid
to the Fomorians to avert blight on the crops.
The idea of bent, or stooping, also conveys the image of old age,
something ancient, something with great knowledge or wisdom
perhaps? It is interesting that crin (Old Irish) is very close to
crinda, meaning wise or prudent.
The Crooked One also reminds me of the folktale of Am Figheadair
Crotach (The Hunchbacked Weaver) which is well known throughout
both Ireland and Scotland. It tells of how two hunchbacks each in
turn go to the fairy mound. The first one simply sits down to rest
there, hears the faeries singing, and likes it so much that he
sings along with them, adding a little of his own at the end. The
faeries were so pleased at this, that they rewarded him by removing
the hunch from his back.
Meanwhile, the second hunchback, on hearing this, decided that he
too would go to the mound and demand that the faeries do the same
for him. However, when he heard their singing he only grew
irritated at them, and the ending that he gave the tune displeased
the faeries greatly. Instead of removing his hunch, they gave him
the one that had been taken off the first. So, for his lack of due
respect, he ended up in a far worse state than before!
Such tales illustrate the duality inherent in the natural world and
the elements, the duality of constructive and destructive forces.
The powers of growth in the summer give way to the powers of decay
in the winter. This duality can be seen in the battle between the
Tuatha De Danann and the Fomoire, and in many other Indo-European
religious mythologies.
It should come as no surprise to find this same symbolic duality
being re-enacted in the 'battle for supremacy' between Crom Cruaich
and Saint Patrick, between the pagan and Christian religion. It was
easy for the early Christians to see their first saints as engaging
war on the 'dark forces'. If the representations of these forces
could be portrayed in negative terms, so much the better. It would
seem that Crom provided a perfect scapegoat.
Ronald Black (3) notes a game of combat from the Isle of Barra
known as Crom an Fhasaich (Crom of the Wilderness) which was
printed in Tocher 28. The game involves a contest of both wit and
wrestling between two boys. The first would question 'Crom'
saying:
"Failt ort fhein a Chrom an Fhasaich, co as 'n do choisich thu an
diugh?" (Greetings to you, Crom of the Wilderness, where have you
walked from today?).
Crom replies: "Choisich mi bho m' fhonn 's bho m' fhearann 's bho
m' fhasaich fhein" (I have walked from my own territory and land
and wilderness)
"De chuir fonn is fearann is fasach agadsa 's mise gun fhonn, gun
fhearann, gun fhasach?" (How did you get territory and land and
wilderness, when I am without territory, and land and
wilderness?)
Crom goes on to say that it was by his own toughness and swiftness
and strength that he got it, to which the boy offers a challenge to
put it to the test, and the wrestling would start.
Yet Crom also has another name - Ceann Cruaich, meaning the Head or
Chief of the mound. Its equivalent in Welsh is Pen Crug (or Penn
Cruc, the earlier version). The 'head' would seem to be a title
denoting authority and leadership and is probably connected with
the cult of mounds and hills as sacred places, associated with the
ancestors and with the sidhe. [See my article The People of the
Mounds. In Dalriada Magazine - Bride 1993] Such sidhe mounds were
regarded as entrances to the Celtic otherworld lands, magical lands
of perpetual youth, feasting and happiness. This is a far cry from
the picture we are presented with in the ancient poems of Crom
Cruaich.
In Wales, the gorsed was a gathering place on the top of sacred
mounds or high places for the giving of judgements. The gorsed of
Arberth, in South Wales, is mentioned in the ancient sagas of the
Mabinogi. It is said that no-one ever ascended the hill without
either receiving wounds, or seeing a miracle, another reference to
the duality of positive and negative found in mythology. The gorsed
was held in the open air, around a circle of stones, with a larger
stone in the middle. The image of Crom and his stone idols comes to
mind once again.
This ancient tradition of gathering on hill summits was carried on
well into Christian times, with Parliament hills or Law hills to be
found all over Scotland. On the Isle of Man the Manx parliament
still assembles every midsummer on Tynwald hill, to read out the
laws of the land to the people. In Ireland, thousands of pilgrims
climb to the summit of Croagh Padraig in Co. Mayo every year, out
of respect for their saint.
In the poem from the Book of Leinster, we are told that:
"Since the rule
of Herimon, the noble man of grace
There was worshipping of stones
Until the coming of good Patrick of Macha"
Folklore has much to say about this "worshipping of stones" and
this is a huge subject in its own right. Mention is made in the
Brehon Laws of "Ailche Adhartha" or the Stones of Adoration. What
I am really interested in here is the mention of Herimon. His name
is usually written as Eremon, and he was one of the first sons of
Mil who came to Ireland, and took the kingship of the land
thereafter. The fifth Milesian king in succession from Eremon was
Tighearnmas (whose name means 'lord' or 'noble') who, we are told,
was responsible for introducing the worship of Crom Cruaich on Magh
Slecht. He was also responsible, according to legend, for the first
gold mining in Ireland - the very metal that the stone idol of Crom
was encased in. Tighearnmas is said to have perished along with
three quarters of his people while worshipping this idol at
Samhain:
"To him noble Gaels would prostrate
themselves..."
and later:
"...they beat their palms, they pounded their bodies
wailing to the demon who enslaved them
they shed falling showers of tears..."
This all sounds rather exaggerated for effect. We are not told how
this 'demon' enslaved them, or why these worshippers should undergo
such violent acts of self mutilation. What we are told is that it
was the 'noble' Gaels that worshipped here, in other words, those
with free status, those who held the Nemed under Brehon law, those
upper echelons of society who were admitted to the public
ceremonies held by the druids. These were no mere peasant farmers,
but noblemen and women, and kings along with them. Crom certainly
had quite an aristocratic following!
We are also told, in another part of the poem, the reasons for the
prostration, and the offering of the first born as tribute:
"Milk and corn
They would ask from him speedily
in return for one third of their healthy issue
great was the horror and the scare of him."
The Nemedians were forced to offer such a tribute to the Fomorians,
and so too were the De Dananns. This would suggest that the
Fomorian gods were gods of fertility and of agriculture, to whom
appeasement had to be made so that they would continue to provide
the sustenance of the harvest. Popular folk belief still retains
the idea of leaving offerings out to the daoine maith, the good
folk or sidhe, to prevent them stealing the goodness of the
milk.
Another poem (4) illustrates the more beneficent aspects of Crom
Cruaich, as an earth fertility deity:
Mise a chothaionn an gas, an phreamh
A bheathaionn a bhfasann ar talamh
Ormsa ni thagann aon mheath
Is mean an dias throm, an gheag aibidh
(It is I who nourish the shoot, the root
Who feed all that grows from the earth
I suffer no decay
I am the heavy ear of corn, the ripe branch).
Another verse points to further links with the earth, somewhat
similar to the Dagda or Dis Pater, an ancestral god that dwells
deep within the earth:
Nilim guagach, taim seasmhach
Chomh leanunach le deilbh na re
Is me bithbhiogadh na talun
Ata lonnaithe go doimhin sa chre.
(I do not vacillate, I am steadfast
As faithful as the shape of the moon
I am the eternal trembling of the earth
Deeply lodged in the clay).
All this points to Crom Cruaich being a Fomorian deity, connected
with the earth and worshipped at the mounds of the ancestors. He
was also a god of agriculture and fertility, to whom tributes were
paid. I find it hard to imagine that this idol would have the
following of the people if they had to sacrifice their first born
children. It is more probable that this involved some sacrifice or
ritual killing of livestock, for the purposes of a public feast in
which everyone would partake.
If Crom Cruaich was, in fact, a Fomorian deity in origin, why was
he worshipped by the Milesian nobles? My own theory on this is that
he was such a popular deity, with such a hold over the pre-Milesian
races of Ireland, that his worship could not possibly be stamped
out. Instead, the Milesians simply absorbed him into their own
pantheon, and at the same time usurped his site as their own, with
their own druids taking power and control over the ceremonial
proceedings.
We can recall that after the battle with Saint Patrick, the twelve
stone idols were said to have been swallowed up by the earth, as
far as their heads. I feel this is more than simply a poetic
description for the site falling into ruin and abandon. There is
the connection between the earth and the reverence for sacred
mounds as dwelling places of the ancestors, who are themselves
guardians of the land, responsible for its fertility and the
provision of food.
The symbolism may go even deeper than this. The swearing of an oath
would be put to the test by something like: "If I swear false, may
the seas rise up, may the sky fall on my head, may the earth
swallow me up". Clearly, being swallowed up by the earth was
something that filled any Celt with dread. If the earth had
swallowed up Crom Cruaich and his idols, that might have been the
end of it. And yet, the earth did not cover them completely, but
left the heads, the most important part, exposed; the part which
denotes authority, rulership, chieftainship - from which Cenn
Cruaich, the Head of the Mound, takes his name, and from which, "by
hook or by crook" he will not be forgotten!
Notes:
* Quoted in Squires, p.38
* Quoted in Rhys, p.200
* From 'Tine Chnamh' by Liam O Muirthile, BAC 1984
(Translations provided here by Dennis King)
References:
* MacCulloch, J.A. (1911) The Religion of the Ancient Celts *
Rhys, J. (1898) The Hibbert Lectures
* Squires, C. (1975) Celtic Myth and Legend
[Author: L. MacDonald, Dalriada magazine 1995]
[(c) DALRIADA CELTIC HERITAGE TRUST, ISLE OF ARRAN]
[Scottish Charity No. SC023948]
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