The Demon St. Patrick Fought: Cromm Crúaich
About the ancient god that held sway over the Irish before Christianity and a Sneak Peek of this Month's Short Story!
St. Patrick gains the lion’s share of attention during the month of March and most schoolchildren are told the story of St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland. While this popular tale might be a metaphor for the Christian conversion of Ireland (i.e., the snakes representing pagans) it is far from the only story of St. Patrick battling pagan deities deemed as “demons.”
One such story this week’s post will be covering involves a dark god that has wormed its way into popular culture from the early 20th century with Robert E. Howard’s saga of Conan the Cimmerian (or Barbarian as he’s more popularly known). I am referring of course to, as Conan would say, “CROM!” or as he is known in Old Irish Cromm Crúaich.
Origins of the God
The story of Cromm Crúaich and St. Patrick’s encounter with him comes from two different texts: The Metrical Dindshenchas (12th century A.D.) and The Tripartite Life of Patrick (9th-12th centuries A.D.). The former text is a collection of “place-lore” stories, chronicling how places in Ireland received their names. The latter is a hagiography on St. Patrick, detailing his life and the miracles he performed throughout Ireland. Both texts contain an episode detailing St. Patrick’s encounter with Cromm Crúaich and information about this deity—as perceived by the Christian authors relaying the tales.
The name of this god has several meanings1 and variations based on which text he is referenced in. In The Metrical Dindshenchas (MD), he is known as Cromm Crúaich. The word cromm is an adjective meaning “bent, stooped, [or] crooked” and the word crúach2 is a noun that means “stack of corn; [or] rick”, so together these words may mean something like “crooked heap.” The only similarity between the name of this deity and his functions would be the association with corn since the texts mention that he would provide bountiful harvests to his worshippers if they complied with his demands for sacrifice. In The Tripartite Life (TLSP), this god is referred to as Cenn Crúaich. Cenn in Old Irish means “head” and the word crúach in this case is an adjective that means “gory [or] bloody”, so literally another name for this god would be “Bloody Head” which seems to be the favored interpretation of most popularly media, yet it also falls in line with the gruesome demands of the god. Fittingly, crúach has a third meaning as a noun: “slaughter, wounding, [or] carnage.”
Both MD and TLSP describe Cromm (or Cenn) Crúaich being bound to an idol in a place known as Mag Slécht (“the Plain of Prostrations”). MD claims,
[I]t caused every tribe to live without peace.
Alas for its secret power! the valiant Gaedil [Gaels] used to worship it: not without tribute did they ask of it to satisfy them with their share in the hard world.
He was their god, the wizened Cromm, hidden by many mists: as for the folk that believed in him, the eternal Kingdom beyond every haven shall not be theirs.
For him ingloriously they slew their hapless firstborns with much wailing and peril, to pour their blood around Cromm Crúaich.
Milk and corn they asked of him speedily in return for a third part of all their progeny: great was the horror and outcry about him…
Ranged in ranks stood idols of stone four times three [twelve]; to beguile the hosts grievously the figure of the Cromm was formed of gold.3
TSLP describes the vessel Cenn Crúaich inhabits like so: “[T]he chief idol of Ireland, namely, Cenn Cruaich, covered with gold and silver, and twelve other idols covered with brass about him.”4 There is no mention of human sacrifice or the function of Cenn/Cromm Crúaich as a pagan deity in TSLP, most likely because authors reserved that information for MD.
Outside of the information provided in these texts and a few folkloric examples,5 we know very little about who the deity Cromm Crúaich was. He is not mentioned in any of the Mythological Cycle6 saga texts and we don’t have any archaeological evidence that hints at his worship or depictions—there are also no signs of the gold, silver, or brass idols in the area that Mag Slécht would have encompassed.
One element that many modern interpretations of Cromm Crúaich focus on is the reference to Samhain (Halloween) in MD:
Thither came Tigernmas, prince of distant Tara, one Samain eve, with all his host: the deed was a source of sorrow to them.
They stirred evil, they beat palms, they bruised bodies, wailing to the demon who held them thralls, they shed showers of tears, weeping prostrate.
Dead the men, void of sound strength the hosts of Banba, with land-wasting Tigernmas in the north, through the worship of Cromm Cruaich—hard their hap!7
Samhain is usually seen in myth and folklore as the night when the borders between the world of mortals and the world of spirits is thinnest. While the bloody tribute to Cromm Crúaich is not specifically stated to take place on Samhain, it seems that the tragedy of Tigernmas might have been exacerbated because of his decision to “stir evil” on the night of Samhain.
St. Patrick managed to break Cromm Crúaich’s yoke over the Gaelic people by either exorcising the idol he inhabited or smashing it with a sledge. The picture of the Killycluggin Stone featured in this post depicts a replica of real Bronze Age stone fragments found where Mag Slécht would have been. As stated above, however, there are no signs of metals having adorned this stone or any confirmation if this stone actually depicted a god or was an object of worship.
Cromm in Popular Media
The figure of Cromm Crúaich has been adapted across various forms of media in fiction, games, and music especially. Most often he is portrayed in a negative, villainous, or at least grim light, probably due to how he is described by the Christian authors of MD and TLSP.
One of the most famous interpretations of Cromm Crúaich in fiction is, of course, the patron god of Conan the Cimmerian—CROM! In stark contrast to the Irish god, Robert E. Howard clearly describes the Cimmerian Crom as not wanting of worship and unwilling to send blessings to his followers. Conan himself, in the original short stories, only acknowledges his god as one who bestows life but gives no blessings beyond that. Any invocations Conan makes of Crom are as curses rather than pleas for aid, as Howard makes it clear that Conan will not beg for victory from a god but will take it for himself.
In the vein of sword and sorcery fantasy, another depiction of Cromm Crúaich can be found in the latter half of Michael Moorcock’s Corum series—The Silver Hand Trilogy. The protagonist Corum Jhaelen Irsei travels thousands of years into the future of his world to find a tribe of humans that worship him as a god known as Cremm Croich—whom they have also named themselves after: Tuha-na-Cremm Croich. One of the most notable locations in The Silver Hand Trilogy is the “place of power” known as Cremmsmound where an alternate version of Corum is buried. This aligns somewhat with the Irish belief in faerie mounds (síde) as being connections to the Otherworld or places where supernatural occurrences are bound to happen. Cromm Crúaich himself is not explicitly described to be associated with a mound, or his idol being on top of a mound, but the first translation of crúach (“rick”) could also refer to a mound.
A third more overt interpretation of Cromm Crúaich can be found in Tomm Moore’s 2009 animated film The Secret of Kells. Kells’ Cromm Crúaich is depicted as a large, snake-like creature, which falls in line with many modern interpretations of him. From what I could gather, there are no mentions of his physical appearance in any of the texts he is referenced in and there is no definitive archaeological evidence depicting Cromm Crúaich as native Gaelic peoples of Ireland would have imagined him. In The Secret of Kells, the faerie character known as Aisling claims Cromm Crúaich is at least partially responsible for the scarcity of her people. Tomm Moore’s films based on Irish folklore usually take creative liberties with their source material but reimagine them in respectful and interesting ways. In Kells, Moore retains the mystery of Cromm Crúaich as a god but, through Aisling, references the strife his worship was said to have caused in the textual sources he appears in, albeit reapplied to the faerie folk of Ireland rather than Gaelic-speaking peoples.
There are a smattering of other references and depictions of Cromm Crúaich in modern media, such as in Pat Mills’ Sláine graphic novel series (which I wholeheartedly intend to review in the future) where I understand he is depicted as a worm-like creature; he is also the subject of several songs in the Irish pagan folk metal band Cruachan’s 2014 album “Blood for the Blood God”; and he also has several interpretations across video games and short fiction.8
In most direct references of Cromm Crúaich and his roots in Irish myth, he often serves the role of the dim past of the Isle, starkly contrasting the dawn of Christianity ushered in by St. Patrick. He likely was emblematic of a dark period Ireland’s clergy would have liked to have forgotten, but the strong storytelling traditions of the Gaelic people carried his memory forward for new storytellers to interpret in their own tales.
Now for a Sneak Peek of this Month’s Short Story: Cromm’s Gold!
In this new Art Cavanagh story, the intrepid Irish-American adventurer travels to a fabled island, following the rumor of ancient treasure supposedly sequestered upon it. What he finds there may have been better off lost to the dim seas west of Erin’s Isle.
The little ferry seemed to skim across a murky oblivion as the grey sky lightened, yet refused to break beneath the sun. Through the haze in the west, and wan beams that slid through the clouds, the crewmen spotted a low, mound-like shape rising out of the horizon.
“There!” Art cried clambering to the bow, finger thrust forward. “Do you see it, O’Gill?”
“Aye,” answered the ferryman. “I’ll bring us closer but not too far. It could just be a skerry.”
O’Gill kept the course true towards the shape on the sea. He slowed as it rose higher above the waves and the crashing of them sounded against its craggy coast. Beneath the mist, a swath of green bloomed above the ridged, black crown of the landmass, dotted with the bright yellow and purple buds of early spring flowers.
“Happy days!” cried O’Gill. “As I breathe…the very island Grandfather saw with his own eyes! I’m seeing it with mine!”
“And my own,” added Art.
Connelly merely gaped at the sight, wiping water from his face and blinking. Suddenly, he pointed at the rocks and shouted, “Careful! We won’t be its first victims if we don’t slow now.”
The skeletons of small boats, coracles, and even the fragments of a colonial galley thrashed against the crags and skerries around the island like prisoners. Their slimy, rotten remains somehow enduring the throes of the sea for ages before the arrival of the little ferry and its crew.
“I’ll bring us ‘round,” O’Gill turned the handle of the motor, “and find a cove or spit of sand to moor us.”
O’Gill guided the ferry towards the northern edge of the island where the rocks receded. The crags opened to a short inlet ending at a beach made up of many little stones. O’Gill killed the motor, letting Art and Connelly take up the oars to row onto the shore. The two younger men hopped out of the boat several yards from dry land, running it into a sturdy spot aground. O’Gill sprung out of his vessel and beamed at a ridge overlooking the beach, the grass and flowers upon it shaking in the wind. He strode with a merry gait up towards the green, Art and Connelly following close behind.
“Odd,” mumbled Connelly as he, O’Gill, and Art mounted the slope under the ridge.
“Hmm?” Art jostled his companion with his elbow.
“I haven’t heard a single gull since we moored.”
Art looked about the sky and the rocks ringing the island, then nodded. “Odd indeed, mayhap this place is a mystery even to them.”
O’Gill, still in the lead, crested the ridge and stepped forward a few paces before removing his wool cap. He stood, frozen in the wind and rain, his gaze set on whatever plain spread before him.
“As grand as you imagined, O’Gill?” inquired Art with a laugh as he and Connelly joined their skipper on the ridge. His mirth vanished like dew in rain as he beheld a sight which made his marrow run cold. Even before he came to his ancestral Ireland, Art’s grandfather told him a story of a place St. Patrick visited and cast out a demon that held the Gaels under its yoke for ages.
“This demon,” his grandfather had told him, “dwelt in an idol of gold, surrounded by twelve statues of stone.”
Art, Connelly, and O’Gill looked upon a plain, thick with grass, and upon the swell of a mound stood twelve tall dolmen stones in a circle. In the center of them, gleaming in the pale grey light, was a figure of gold.
The entirety of “Cromm’s Gold” will be available to read for free on Friday, March 29th!
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Special Announcement! New Story Release!
I am excited to share that DMR Books has released their latest anthology Die By the Sword Volume II! This collection contains twelve tales of sword & sorcery fantasy, including my latest story “Balefire Beneath the Waves” featuring my series characters Eachann MacLeod and Connor Ua Sreng.
In this story, the lads pledge their service to a gruff sailor who has been travelling the world with his daughter, hunting a mysterious sea monster whose existence has haunted him since his youth. Eachann, Connor, and the small crew of the mad sailor’s ship soon find more than they bargained for in the stormy grey seas north of Scotland…
You can pick up your copy of Die By the Sword Volume II in paperback, hardcover, or eBook from DMR Books’ website! Be sure to leave a review and spread the word with friends, family, and fellow fans of S&S!
Definitions for any Old Irish words are found on the electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (eDIL): link.
Because of Irish grammatical rules this word has an -i- inserted in it when it’s used in combination with cromm.
The Metrical Dindshenchas. Translated by Edward Gwynn, 1991. https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T106500D/index.html
The Tripartite Life of Patrick. Translated by Whitley Stokes, 1887. 91. https://archive.org/details/tripartitepatrick00stokuoft/mode/2up
There are stories of a figure known as Cromm Dubh (“Black Cromm”) whom St. Patrick also challenges. In these tales, Cromm Dubh is portrayed as a tyrannical human chieftain who hoards the treasure of his tenants
The Mythological Cycle refers to a body of texts that primarily deals with the prehistory of Ireland. Most characters in these tales are thought to be holdovers of Ireland’s pre-Christian religion.
MD. Gwynn (trans).
One of these short fiction interpretations of Cromm Crúaich can be found in my Eachann and Connor story “The Tomb of Tigernmas” featured in DMR Books’ sword and sorcery fantasy anthology Samhain Sorceries (2022).
Goodness I had no idea that the translation of Crom Cruach’s name was so gruesome! Also I didn’t know that the snake in The Secret of Kells was supposed to be him as well—I like this interpretation. It makes him seem a lot more primal and animalistic, plus it reminds me of the giant serpent found widespread across Indo-European myths.
Wow- and here I thought Howard had invented Crom out of whole cloth...