St. Patrick overthrew this idol, according both to the poem in the Book of Leinster and the early lives of the saint. The life says that when St. Patrick cursed Crom the ground opened and swallowed up the twelve lesser idols as far as their heads, which, as Rhys acutely observes, shows that when the early Irish lives of the saint were written the pagan sanctuary had so fallen into decay, that only the heads of the lesser idols remained above ground, while he thinks that it was at this time from its bent attitude and decayed appearance the idol was called Crom, "the Stooper."[12] There is, however, no apparent or recorded connection between this idol and the druids, nor do the druids appear to have fulfilled the functions of a public priesthood in Ireland, and the Introduction to the Seanchas Mór, or ancient Book of the Brehon Laws, distinctly says that, "until Patrick came only three classes of persons were permitted to speak in public in Erin, a chronicler to relate events and to tell stories, a poet to eulogise and to satirise, and a Brehon to pass sentence from precedents and commentaries," thus noticeably omitting all mention of the druids as a public body. The idol Crom with his twelve subordinates may very well have represented the sun, upon whom both season and crops and consequently the life both of man and beast depend. The gods to whom the early Irish seem to have sacrificed, were no doubt, as I think Mr. Nutt has shown, agricultural powers, the lords of life and growth, and with these the sun, who is at the root of all growth, was intimately connected, "the object of that worship was to promote increase, the theory of worship was--life for life."[13] That the Irish swore by the sun and the moon and the elements is certain; the oath is quoted in many places,[14] and St. Patrick appears to allude to sun-worship in that passage of his "Confession," where he says, "that sun which we see rising daily at His bidding for our sake, it will never reign, and its splendour will not last for ever, but those who adore it will perish miserably for all eternity:" this is also borne out by the passage in Cormac's Glossary of the images the pagans used to adore, "as, for instance, the form or figure of the sun on the altar."[15] Another phase of the druidic character seems to have been that he was looked upon as an intermediary between man and the invisible powers. In the story which tells us how Midir the De Danann, carries off the king's wife, we are informed that the druid's counsel is sought as to how to recover her, which he at last is enabled to do "through his keys of science and Ogam," after a year's searching.