74 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



boy to be sacrificed at Tara when the harvest failed ? Probably to Lug, whose 

 shrine, " Cro Luga," was there.* 



As " the Gaulish Mercury," identified as such as being "inventor of all 

 the arts," as Caesar writes, he also is " master of all the arts together " in 

 early Irish literature. He was the object of excessive human sacrifice on 

 the great mountain of Puy de Dome,^ whence he took his name " Dumias " or 

 " Dumiatus " " of tlie duma." He was associated with monoliths in Graul, 

 his figure being carved on the Menhir of Kervadel, now at Ker Nuz, and at 

 one near Peronne.' 



Is it not possible that " Crom Dubh " is a Christian libel on this glorious 

 but terrible and blood-thirsty god ? A caricature must have a general 

 likeness to the actual person, however exaggerated. 



The great monolith on the west circle of Loch Gur was, on Windele's 

 visit, about 1840, known, as now, by the name Monnach Chruim Duibh^; so 

 the name preceded the lamentable flood of bad philology, guesswork, and 

 unfounded druidical assertions which overwhelmed it since 1870. If 

 Professor Macalister's revision of Bonnach as Rothannach, " the ivheels of 

 Crom Dubh," be accepted, we get an apparent side-light from "the Battle of 

 Magh Eath," relating to an event in A.D. 637. " A boy walks the road of 

 raths, around which are dug the graves of Eoth " ; this is revised into " the 

 road of Eoth, around which are the graves of heroes.'" This was apparently 

 a monument among cairns, and with an ancient road near it, as at Loch Gur, 



Now (not to enter too far on a most contentious and obscure subject), the 

 sort of primeval zeppelin, the Roth Ramhat, or " rowing wheel," full of men 

 and destined to hurl down fire on Ireland at the Last Day, was connected 

 with a druid of this district, Mog ruith, the " slave of Eoth," whose great 

 " rowing wheel " lay, as fragments of rocks, at Cleghile, not far from 

 Limerick Junction, and far eastward near Dublin ; he is usually confused 

 with the Roth Ramhat myth, save in his one early local story of 

 Co. Limerick (the Forhais Druim Damhgaire), at Knocklong, six miles from 

 Cromwell. The Askeaton and Ballyneety harvest tales and the " Sunday of 



»Folk Lore, sxxi, p. Ill; "Echtra Airfc" ('Eriu, iii, p. 149, p. 155). For other 

 human sacrifices in Ireland, see " Three Irish Glossaries," p. 70 (Emania) ; also 'Eriu, ii, 

 p. 86. Not to cite the separate sources as to Gallo-British human sacrifice, I may refer 

 to MacCuUoch's " Relig. Ancient Celts," pp. 235-6. 



" Tertullian, " Apologeticus adversus Gnosticos." M. Moncedas in Revue Hist., 

 XXXV, p. 225. MacCulloch, "Relig. Anc. Celts," p. 24, for epithet "Dumias," and 

 Revue Archeol., 1874 (ii), p. 332. 



3 " Rel. Anc. Celts," p. 284 ; " Les Dieux Gaulois," Courcelle Seneuilj pp. 8, 9. 



4 Topog. of Kerry, Limerick, &c. (J. Windele, MS., R. I. Ac, C. i, 23). 



6 'Eriu, vi, p. 241 ; also " Battle of Magh Rath " and " Life of St. Mochulla " 

 (Analecta Bolland. , xvii, p. 135). 



