A bit of Halloweenery.
I searched for this topic, with spelling variations(Gaelic!), and was surprized to find it unmentioned in total. I was reminded of this because of the "Samhain Death God" notion discussed in the Halloween thread.
Crom Cruach was supposedly a fearsome deity worshipped by the Irish. According to two mediaeval Irish texts, among them the Book of Leinster. According to the accounts, ole Crommie's effigy was "the king idol of all Ireland," made of solid gold, surrounded by a set of 12 stone lesser idols, and set up on the "Mag Sleacht" in Ulster. On Halloween, peasants were to sacrifice firstborn children and the finest livestock. As the ramble goes, king Tigernmus met some dim and grizzly fate worshipping the idol on that very night. St. Patrick is credited with vanquishing the idol and its worship.
Now, Crom Cruach seems to get taken seriously by Celtic researchers. I've seen alot of debate about which god he was supposed to be an analog of. To say I'm a little skeptical is an understatement, however.
Lots of things don't work:
First there's the absurd drama of it all: worship reserved for one night a year, mass sacrifices, poor king Tigernmus' getting presumably eaten by the god (Ia ia!), the solid gold idol, etc. Even the names are suspiciously melodramatic. Now, it's been a while, so my Gaelic may not be so...ahem...maith, and my Old Irish Gaelic even less maith, but Mag Sleacht translates potentially as "The Slashing Field" and Crom Cruach as "Blood-drenched hook." Yeah right. And then there's the Schwartzeneggerian scene of Crom Cruach's demise at the hands of St. Patrick where the idol sinks into the ground.
Also, if such a deity were indeed the "chief among gods," one would expect to find many references in Irish mythology. Nope, none. Imagine the Greeks leaving Zeus out and then some one recalling that a pathologically womanizing guy with a beard and a lightning bolt used to be worshipped by the Hellenes. Plus, I figure if a deity warranted a giant gold idol, he'd get some acknowledgement outisde of Halloween night.
The Irish sacrificing firstborns and prize lifestock en masse is also absurd, which brings me to my theory and final point.
Crom Cruach appears to be a reinvention of the Biblical Moloch, the firey idol of the Canaanites to whom the Israelites were supposed to have sacrificed their firstborn children. Crom Cruach's sacrifices were also burned. Mendaciously linking Irish polytheism probably helped early founders of Christianity in that nation.
Maybe physical evidence exists for or against Crom Cruach. If it were on a large plain in Ulster, maybe some archaeology has been done. Then again, funding is hard to find.
I searched for this topic, with spelling variations(Gaelic!), and was surprized to find it unmentioned in total. I was reminded of this because of the "Samhain Death God" notion discussed in the Halloween thread.
Crom Cruach was supposedly a fearsome deity worshipped by the Irish. According to two mediaeval Irish texts, among them the Book of Leinster. According to the accounts, ole Crommie's effigy was "the king idol of all Ireland," made of solid gold, surrounded by a set of 12 stone lesser idols, and set up on the "Mag Sleacht" in Ulster. On Halloween, peasants were to sacrifice firstborn children and the finest livestock. As the ramble goes, king Tigernmus met some dim and grizzly fate worshipping the idol on that very night. St. Patrick is credited with vanquishing the idol and its worship.
Now, Crom Cruach seems to get taken seriously by Celtic researchers. I've seen alot of debate about which god he was supposed to be an analog of. To say I'm a little skeptical is an understatement, however.
Lots of things don't work:
First there's the absurd drama of it all: worship reserved for one night a year, mass sacrifices, poor king Tigernmus' getting presumably eaten by the god (Ia ia!), the solid gold idol, etc. Even the names are suspiciously melodramatic. Now, it's been a while, so my Gaelic may not be so...ahem...maith, and my Old Irish Gaelic even less maith, but Mag Sleacht translates potentially as "The Slashing Field" and Crom Cruach as "Blood-drenched hook." Yeah right. And then there's the Schwartzeneggerian scene of Crom Cruach's demise at the hands of St. Patrick where the idol sinks into the ground.
Also, if such a deity were indeed the "chief among gods," one would expect to find many references in Irish mythology. Nope, none. Imagine the Greeks leaving Zeus out and then some one recalling that a pathologically womanizing guy with a beard and a lightning bolt used to be worshipped by the Hellenes. Plus, I figure if a deity warranted a giant gold idol, he'd get some acknowledgement outisde of Halloween night.
The Irish sacrificing firstborns and prize lifestock en masse is also absurd, which brings me to my theory and final point.
Crom Cruach appears to be a reinvention of the Biblical Moloch, the firey idol of the Canaanites to whom the Israelites were supposed to have sacrificed their firstborn children. Crom Cruach's sacrifices were also burned. Mendaciously linking Irish polytheism probably helped early founders of Christianity in that nation.
Maybe physical evidence exists for or against Crom Cruach. If it were on a large plain in Ulster, maybe some archaeology has been done. Then again, funding is hard to find.