48 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



supremacy in the old Irish pantheon. Of all its inmates, he alone can 

 produce from our ancient literature specific credentials of divinity. Every 

 succeeding wave of invaders brought, no doubt, its own chosen celestials to our 

 shore ; but, each and all, they failed to dethrone Crom, and his empire tottered 

 only when the Gospel message was sounded at Magh Sleacht. " Until 

 Patrick's advent he was the god of every folk that colonized Ireland."' 

 The versified Dinnsenchus, as rendered by Kuno Meyer, attests : — 



" He was their God, 



The withered Crom with many mists, 



The people whom he shook over every host. 



The evei'lasting kingdom they shall not have."' 



In a note to this stanza the translator suggests "harbour" as a possible 

 alternative for the word " host" of the third line. In the Irish original the 

 term used is cican ; and for cuan Edward O'Reilly gives the following mean- 

 ings:— (a) deceit ; (&) a bay, haven; (c) a field ; (rf) a troop, multitude.^ If 

 O'Eeilly's authority is not challenged, all these meanings should, on their 

 merits, be equally eligible for selection ; and as (c) alone would succeed in 

 yielding clearly intelligible language, I shall substitute it for " host " in the 

 English version. I shall also write " faded Ci'om " for " withered Crom " 

 (Irish, Cromm Crin) in the second line, on the warranty of O'Eeilly, who 

 translates cri7ie as " rottenness, withering, fading." 



The second couplet of the same stanza appears to me to be remarkably 

 suggestive of a well-known sentence of St. Patrick's Confession : " Oinnes 

 qui adorant eum {id est solem) in poenam miseri male devenient."* The 

 correspondence of the thoughts conveyed by the two texts creates, at all 

 events, a strong presumption that the poet, when inditing this verse, had 

 St. Patrick's pronouncement prominently in mind. In other words, the 

 writer must be suspected of merely repeating in his own poetic style the 

 plagiarized judgment that all the field-dwellers who quailed superstitiously 

 under the darkened sun had forfeited thereby the hope of eternal salvation."^ 



' " Rennes Dindsenchas," " Revue Celtique,"xvi, p. 36. 



- "Voyage of Bran," ii,p. 304. 



^ " Irish-English Dictionary," sub voce. 



^ "The Latin Writings of St. Patrick," by N. J. D. White, d.d. (Proo. R. I, A. 

 vol. XXV, Sec. C, p. 252). 



^ The likelihood that the Dinnaenchus-maker was well acquainted with St. Patrick's 

 Confession is further corroborated by the lines attesting the existence of idol-worship 

 in pre-Patrician Ireland : 



" There was worshipping of stones 

 Until the coming of good Patrick of Macha." 



Compare "nisi idula et immuiida usque nunc semper coluerunt" (White's "Latin 

 Writings of St. Patrick," p. 248). 



