Dalton — Cromm Cruaich of Magh Sleacht. 59 



their application, to distinguish the deity as he manifested himself in two 

 separate, yet co-ordinate, sets of activities. Lug was distinctively the sun- 

 god of the ruling Gaels, personifying tlie sun in his luminous splendour.' 

 Crom was a sun-god likewise ; but the sun which he typified showed a face 

 turning black with anger-, and wrathful eyebrows boding havoc to men. 



In Ireland Crom was undoubtedly the older deity ; and until Lug came 

 hither, probably with the race that afterwards shed lustre on Eniania,' Crom 

 was undisputed lord of the sky and the air.^ It is not at all unlikely that 

 the punishment inflicted on the myth-hero Tigernmas at Magh Sleacht* was 

 brought on himself by an ill-advised effort to assimilate the rites of tlie 

 native divinity Crom to the exotic worship of the imported Lug. But 

 Crom Cruaich prevailed over Tigernmas ; and until Patrick's time he was 

 worshipped by every folk that had settled in Ireland. He was obliged, it is 

 true, to divide his empire with Lug, reserving as his own domain the exclu- 

 sive realm of the thunder bolts ; yet there is ample reason to believe that 

 the Sen Tuatha never assented to this partial deposition. The depression 

 in rank helped to make Crom morose, fitful, vindictive. Trusted by none, 

 feared by all, with heartless cruelty he exacted the dearest tribute which the 

 Gaels had to bestow, at one time being placated only by hecatombs of their 

 healthy offspring. His demands were, nevertheless, conceded by all, from 

 the High-King down; and J>aegaire himself, sceptic though he apparently 

 was, had not the courage to renounce his religious obligations to Crom at 

 Magh Sleacht. But the demands of Crom's officiators having been wrung 

 from his superstitious fears, rather than freely rendered by his faith, it was 

 not so unnatural that Crom's overthrow by St. Patrick should have received 

 his royal approval. 



The attitude of King Laegaire in rejecting Christia.nity, while sanctioning 

 St. Patrick's mission, has not hitherto been elucidated by the Saint's bio- 

 graphers. The seeming paradox, I think, will cease to perplex when it is 

 remembered that the religious to be suppressed were, in the main, racial 



' This Celtic word is evidently identical with the root of the Greek Aei/Kniiw and Latin 

 luc-eo. 



^ The Irian kings were buried beside Lug's famous shrine at Tailltiu (see Senchas iia 

 releg, in Petrie's "Round Towers," p. 101). 



^ The conquering Hellenes, similarly, suffered the priests of some vanquished states 

 to retain the gloomy rites of their pre-Hellenic god Kronos — the deity to whom, as to 

 the Semitic Baal or Moloch, royal offspring were once sacrificed (see Frazer's "Golden 

 Bough," vol. ix, p. 354). The old Irish Crom presents more than one striking resem- 

 blance to the old Greek Kronos ; but while Kronos was knit to Zeus in closest family 

 relationship, Crom was never reconciled to Lug. 



* See "Four Masters," B.C. 3656. 



