thus in sign of the miracle, and he cursed the demon, and banished him to hell."[1] This legend is contained in a version of St. Patrick's Life attributed to St. Eleranus,[2] who is said to have lived in the seventh century; but whatever the date of the life, it would seem that, by the writer's time, the pagan sanctuary had been so long falling into decay, that of the lesser idols only their heads were to be then seen above ground, and that the idol of Cenn Cruaich, which meant the Head or Chief of the Mound, was slowly hastening to its fall, whence the story of its having had an invisible blow dealt it by St. Patrick. This is also, possibly, the explanation of another name sometimes given to the chief idol, namely, that of Cromm Cruaich, 'the Crooked or Bent One of the Mound,' in reference merely to the attitude of the image in the later days of its decadence.
In some verses of difficult interpretation in the Book of Leinster,[3] a manuscript of the beginning of the twelfth century, Cromm Cruaich has applied to him the adjective crín, which usually means withered and ready to fall, as in the case of a tree which the sap has left. The verses I allude to were written to explain the meaning of the name of the place called Mag Slecht, but they tell us further that the ancient Irish used to sacrifice there the first-born
- ↑ The translation is by Dr. Whitley Stokes in the Rev. Celt. i. 260; another version will be found in O'Curry's MS. Materials, pp. 538-9; and a variety of references are given by M. d'A. de Jubainville in his Cycle, pp. 106-8.
- ↑ For references to Colgan and others with regard to the ancient authors of lives of St. Patrick, see T. Duffus Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue (Rolls edition, 1862), I. i. pp. 64-5.
- ↑ Fol. 213b of the facsimile.
