60 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



inheritances of the older, subject populations. The chief divinity of the 

 Sen Tuatha had no place among the accredited Penates of Milesian rulers : 

 and it is, furthermore, not improbable that the governing Gaels, having out- 

 grown their primitive beliefs, retained of their own ritual observances only 

 the empty forms. They could not have been expected to view with unquali- 

 fied favour the religious stations of Crom ; for the assemblies, being widely 

 diffused through the land, might readily become centres of political dis- 

 affection. 



As thunder-god Crom retained the most formidable of his ancient pre- 

 rogatives, dominion over fire. But this power he would no longer use for 

 beneficent purposes. He kept the awful weapon concealed until his temper 

 got roused: and then, with loud i-umblings and roarings, he flashed it reck- 

 lessly forth, to the dismay of the nations. Small wonder that the tribes- 

 folk, whom " he shook over every field," strove with all their might to 

 pi-opitiate such a ruthless and irascible despot. Like every Aryan race, the 

 Gaels trembled in awe of their malignant thunder-god. In the Homeric 

 theogony Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, sate supreme over all. The Latins had 

 their Jupiter, the Teutons had their Thor, the Gauls had their Taranis, for 

 autocratic disposer of meteorological events.' The same Taranis, with a 

 rapacity which likened him to the Scythian Diana and to the Hibernian 

 Crom Cruaich, demanded the punctual immolation of human victims on his 

 altars.- Taranis extended his sway into Britain, where he reigned as Taran,^ 

 and is thought to have had his idol worshipped under a resembling name.^ 

 Can it be believed that the throne of the thunder-god was left vacant in the 

 palace of our Gaelic immortals ? 1 s it uot more likely that the occupant of 

 that throne held aloof, disdaining to commingle with an adventitious body 

 of celestials who, jealous of his monarchic prerogatives, had striven vainly to 

 usurp his sceptre ? 



' For a full enumeration see Frazer"s " Magic Axt," vol. ii, pp. 356-75. 

 - " Et quibus immitis placatur sanguine diro, . . . 



Et Taranis Scythicae non mitior Dianae." 



(Lucan's "Pharsalia," i, 44rt-7.) 



^ "Taranis seems to have been Tvorshipped by the Britons under titles derived from 

 •words for fire and thunder, as " Summer-god who brought the rain and sunshine, and 

 dispensed the fruits of the earth" (Elton's "Origins of English History," p. 256). 



' " Etirun, the Idol of the Britons," see '■ Diimsenchus of Temhair," in Petrie's 

 " Tara HiU ' (Trans. R.I. A., vol. xviii, pt. ii, p. 130). As to Etirun, or Etherun (" Metr. 

 Duid.," Todd L. Ser., vol. viii, p. 11), it should be noted that Prof. Rhys makes Taranis 

 a goddess (" Orig. and Gr. of Celtic Religion," pp. 70-2; — being, I fear, the sole representa- 

 tive of this view — while Professor ilacalister holds (Proc R.I. A., xixiv, Sect. C, nos. 

 10, 11, pp. 298, 9) that Etherun is the Eddaebnokx of Pictish monuments, and will not 

 easily equate with Taran. 



