[2] "Cach raet bid maith lasin filid agus bud adla(i)c dó do fhaillsiugad."
[3] Thus O'Curry ("Miscellany of the Celtic Society," vol. ii. p. 208); but Stokes translates, "he puts it then on the flagstone behind the door." See the original in Cormac's Glossary under "Himbas." I have not O'Donovan's translation by me.
[4] O'Curry translates this by "day." It is at present curiously used, I suppose by a kind of confusion with the English "moment," in the sense of a minute or other short measure of time. At least I have often heard it so used.
[5] Another species of incantation mentioned in the glossary.
[6] In Irish Magh Sleacht.
[7] In O'Donovan's fragmentary manuscript catalogue of the Irish MSS., in Trinity College, Dublin, he writes apropos of the life of St. Maedhog or Mogue, contained in H. 2, 6: "I searched the two Brefneys for the situation of Moy Sleacht on which stood the chief pagan Irish idol Crom Cruach, but have failed, being misled by Lanigan, who had been misled by Seward, who had been blinded by the impostor Beauford, who placed this plain in the county of Leitrim. It can, however, be proved from this life of St. Mogue that Magh Sleacht was that level part of the Barony of Tullaghan (in the county of Cavan) in which the island of Inis Breaghwee (now Mogue's Island), the church of Templeport, and the little village of Ballymagauran are situated." I have been told that O'Donovan afterwards found reason to doubt the correctness of this identification.
[8] M. de Jubainville connects the name with cru (Latin, cruor), "blood," translating Cenn Cruach by tête sanglante and Crom Cruach by Courbe sanglante, or Croissant ensanglanté; but Rhys connects it with Cruach, "a reek" or "mound," as in Croagh-Patrick, St. Patrick's Reek. Cenn Cruach is evidently the same name as the Roman station Penno-Crucium, in the present county of Stafford, the Irish "c" being as usual the equivalent of the British "p." This would make it appear that Cromm was no local idol. Rhys thinks it got its name Crom Cruach, "the stooped one of the mound," from its bent attitude in the days of its decadence.
[9] Observe the exquisite and complicated metre of this in the original, a proof, I think, that the lines are not very ancient. It has been edited from the Book of Leinster, Book of Ballymote, Book of Lecan, and Rennes MS., at vol. i. p. 301 of Mr. Nutt's "Voyage of Bran," by Dr. Kuno Meyer—
"Ba hé a nDia In Cromm Crín co n-immud cia In lucht ro Craith ós each Cúan In flaithius Búan nochos Bia."
[10] I.e., Eremon or Erimon, Son of Milesius, see above, p. 59.
[11] The details of this idol, and, above all, the connection in which it stands to the mythic culture-king Tighearnmas, could not, as Mr. Nutt well remarks, have been invented by a Christian monk; but nothing is more likely, it appears to me, than that such a one, familiar with the idol rites of Judæa from the Old Testament, may have added the embellishing trait of the sacrifice of "the firstlings of every issue."
[12] Sir Samuel Ferguson's admirable poem upon the death of Cormac refers to the priests of the idol, but there is no recorded evidence of any such priesthood—
"Crom Cruach and his sub-gods twelve,
Saith Cormac, are but carven treene.
The axe that made them haft or helve,
Had worthier of your worship been.
But he who made the tree to grow,
And hid in earth the iron stone,
And made the man with mind to know
The axe's use is God alone.
Anon to priests of Crom were brought— Where girded in their service dread, They ministered in red Moy Slaught— Word of the words King Cormac said.
They loosed their curse against the king,
They cursed him in his flesh and bones,
And daily in their mystic ring
They turned the maledictive stones."
D'Arcy McGee also refers to Crom Cruach in terms almost equally poetic, but equally unauthorised:—
"Their ocean-god was Manannán Mac Lir,
Whose angry lips
In their white foam full often would inter
Whole fleets of ships.
Crom was their day-god and their thunderer, Made morning and eclipse; Bride was their queen of song, and unto her They prayed with fire-touched lips!"
[13] Nutt's "Voyage of Bran," vol. ii. p. 250.
[14] The elements are recorded as having slain King Laoghaire because he broke the oath he had made by them. In the Lament for Patrick Sarsfield as late as the seventeenth century, the unknown poet cries:
"Go mbeannaigh' an ghealach gheal's an ghrian duit,
O thug tu an lá as láimh Righ 'Liam leat."
I.e., May the white Moon and the Sun bless you, since thou hast taken the Day out of the hand of King William.
And a little later we find the harper Carolan swearing "by the light of the sun."
"Molann gach aon an té bhíos cráibhtheach cóir,
Agus molann gach aon an té bhíos páirteach leó,
Dar solas na gréine sé mo rádh go deó Go molfad gan spéis gan bhréig an t-áth mar geóbhad."
[15] See above, ch. V, note 18.
[16] The genitive of drai, the modern draoi (dhree) is druad, from whence no doubt the Latin druidis. It was Pliny who first derived the name from δρῦς. The word with a somewhat altered meaning was in use till recently. The wise men from the East are called druids (draoithe) in O'Donnell's translation of the New Testament. The modern word for enchantment (draoidheacht) is literally "druidism," but an enchanter is usually draoidheadóir, a derivation from draoi.
[17] See above, ch. III, note 14.
[18] Cathbad, Conor mac Nessa's Druid, foretold that any