"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.
[14] The elements are recorded as having slain King Laoghaire because he broke the oath he had made by them. In the Lament for Patrick Sarsfield as late as the seventeenth century, the unknown poet cries:
"Go mbeannaigh' an ghealach gheal's an ghrian duit,
O thug tu an lá as láimh Righ 'Liam leat."
I.e., May the white Moon and the Sun bless you, since thou hast taken the Day out of the hand of King William.