[8] M. de Jubainville connects the name with _cru_ (Latin, _cruor_), "blood," translating Cenn Cruach by _tête sanglante_ and Crom Cruach by _Courbe sanglante_, or _Croissant ensanglanté_; but Rhys connects it with Cruach, "a reek" or "mound," as in Croagh-Patrick, St. Patrick's Reek. Cenn Cruach is evidently the same name as the Roman station Penno-Crucium, in the present county of Stafford, the Irish "c" being as usual the equivalent of the British "p." This would make it appear that Cromm was no local idol. Rhys thinks it got its name Crom Cruach, "the stooped one of the mound," from its bent attitude in the days of its decadence. [9] Observe the exquisite and complicated metre of this in the original, a proof, I think, that the lines are not very ancient. It has been edited from the Book of Leinster, Book of Ballymote, Book of Lecan, and Rennes MS., at vol. i. p. 301 of Mr. Nutt's "Voyage of Bran," by Dr. Kuno Meyer-- "Ba hé a _nDia_ In Cromm Crín co n-immud _cia_ In lucht ro Craith ós each _Cúan_ In flaithius _Búan_ nochos _Bia._" [10] _I.e._, Eremon or Erimon, Son of Milesius, see above, p. 59. [11] The details of this idol, and, above all, the connection in which it stands to the mythic culture-king Tighearnmas, could not, as Mr. Nutt well remarks, have been invented by a Christian monk; but nothing is more likely, it appears to me, than that such a one, familiar with the idol rites of Judæa from the Old Testament, may have added the embellishing trait of the sacrifice of "the firstlings of every issue." [12] Sir Samuel Ferguson's admirable poem upon the death of Cormac refers to the _priests_ of the idol, but there is no recorded evidence of any such priesthood-- "Crom Cruach and his sub-gods twelve, Saith Cormac, are but carven treene. The axe that made them haft or helve, Had worthier of your worship been. But he who made the tree to grow, And hid in earth the iron stone, And made the man with mind to know The axe's use is God alone. Anon _to priests of Crom were brought--_ _Where girded in their service dread_, _They ministered_ in red Moy Slaught-- Word of the words King Cormac said. They loosed their curse against the king, They cursed him in his flesh and bones, And daily in their mystic ring They turned the maledictive stones." D'Arcy McGee also refers to Crom Cruach in terms almost equally poetic, but equally unauthorised:-- "Their ocean-god was Manannán Mac Lir, Whose angry lips In their white foam full often would inter Whole fleets of ships. Crom _was their day-god and their thunderer_, Made morning and eclipse; Bride was their queen of song, and unto her They prayed with fire-touched lips!" [13] Nutt's "Voyage of Bran," vol. ii. p. 250.