Talk:Crom Cruach

message: This article reeks of bias and foolishness. Sacrificing 1/3 of their children??? Come on, that is totally anti-pagan propaganda. You'd think that Jack Chick wrote this article...
- Osarusan 3/17/06
Much of the nonsense that was written here (and elsewhere) about ancient Irish religious practice seems to derive from a peculiar bias that Northern European religion must be related to Semitic religion. There is of course no relationship between the two. Child sacrifice can be found in the Old Testament under the term ‘foundation sacrifice’ (where a first-born child was sacrificed and buried under the door stone, bizarrely to thank Yahweh for the family’s fruitfulness). There is no evidence of this ever occurring in Ireland or Britain, though there is plentiful archaeological evidence from Israel that this was a widespread practice in Judaism, in fact a central religious practice. Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou (who presented the BBC series “The Bible’s Hidden Secrets”) has written a book on the practice of child sacrifice in Judaism “King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities”, which demonstrates just how central it was to Jewish religious practice. It’s interesting that those propagandists for middle eastern religions attribute the worst features of their own religions to much more civilized European paganism.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.42.240.211 (talk) 02:57, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biased 

message: This article definitely needs sources.  It presents as historical fact, but I gaurantee supporting evidence is light to non-existant.
How can we put a disclaimer as I have seen before?
:Well I can see someone has been adding even more outlandish claims, "It had been smashed into several pieces, some of which lay nearby, probably by St.Patrick with a sledgehammer." This is nothing but wild speculation (as is allot of the stuff in this article).
:The Archeological information about this stone, seems interesting (if it can be verified), but I think it belongs in a separate article. Generally this article needs to separate myth from Archaeology, because it is currently a jumble of both and will only really confuse people.
:--Hibernian 17:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. I've added a Disputed Accuracy and Neutrality template to the page, I'm not sure if that's the right template but hopefully it will get the article some much needed attention.--Hibernian 17:29, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We are into the realms of legend, and for what it's worth, these legends are recorded in a number of places. Doesn't mean they're true, but they're worth including in wikipedia. --MacRusgail 20:02, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Balderdash 

message: The article also seems to assert that Crom is most definetly related to the Phoenician culture or Semetic culture. There is no proof of this, rather their are facts against it. The writer seems to re-assert the truthfulness of this connection by mentioning the "fire of Baal." The connection between this festival of the Celts and the Semetic or Phoenician cultures has been disproved, so then would this theory follow (a.k.a it would also be discredited). The Phoenicians, if any, came to Ireland or the British Isles it would have been in extremely small numbers. I altered the page info on this and wote the "(disproven)" statement at the end of the comment in which it states that the worship was brought by Phoenicians. After having done research into the genetic and cultural affect of the Phoenicians, I have concluded that their effect on Irish, Welsh, Scottish, and Ancient Britionic cultures is is completely negligable. There are websites that present cases that their was a influence that would be noteworthy, after looking into them they are extremely faulty. All of the facts that they keep representing have been disproven. The influence of the Phoenicians on the genetic background of these the aforementioned groups does not even exist. No Phoenicians have been found in the Y-chromosomes in the people here. There are J2 and Eb3 and so on which at first glace would seem to show outside influence but these were brought by the Romans, and not Phoenicians, the difference can be determined between the two. The once believed Phoenician Ogham stones were discovered as as just the opposite, not Phoenician. We have no proof that the Phoenicians came to the Brittish Isles, yet even if they did (is which somewhat unlikely, still quite plausible considering they knew it was there in the 6th cent. B.C. yet did not nessisarly go their themselves) they did not influence each other genetically or culturally, only economically to trade goods, not to live together. The idea also that the Semetic DNA is similar to the Celtic ones is also debunked. At first glance again, it would seem they are similar both sharing common haplogroups, but the subgroups of them are radically different and were Hg21 and Hg9 are common amoung Semetic cultures none, meaning absolutely none, are found in the Brittish Isles. Of coaurse modernly there are Jewish families who would have Hg21 and Hg9 in their DNA but this is excluding them. The Ancient Brittish Islanders have different Hg values, but the fact they both had Hg values lead to a misconseption that their is a direct link. In conclusion the Scots, the Irish, Welsh, and Britons are genetically and culturally the same group of people they were always though to be, and are influenced by an outside cultural forces (by which I mean outside of the "Celtic" region of the world, for example Greece).
:- maybe give us some sources? and your name? -Fennel 08:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While it is attested that the Phoenicians came up to the British isles in search of tin, and may have left descendants there, adoption of their religion (and all that stuff about the Moloch) seems extremely unlikely, it just did not fit with the Celtic way of doing things... any relationship between Irish and Phoenician human sacrifice practices reeks of nineteenth century amalgamation and can safely be discounted. Crom Cruach may have been as bloodthisty and greedy as Baal; he was not the same deity, and those who sacrificed to him did not do so for the same reasons. Svartalf 19:22, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phoenicians and Baal in Ireland? 

message: Cromm Cruaich clearly means 'the curved (stone?) of the tumulus' from Proto-Celtic *Croucacrumbas with Welsh cognates. See Macbain's etymological dictionary of the Gaelic language!! Where on earth 'bloody crescent' comes from, is anybody's guess.
:From the Dictionary of the Irish Language Based on Old and Middle Irish Materials (Dublin 1990). Cromm (earlier cromb means "bent, stooped, crooked" (adj); or it can be a noun, i.e. a bent, stooped, crooked thing. "Curved" seems reasonable. "Crescent" is a bit of a reach, but possible. Crúach has a number of possible meanings: (n) a stack of corn; (adj) bloody, gory, from crú, blood, gore, plus the standard adjectival suffix -ach; or (n) slaughter, wounding. A quick look finds croch, gallows, which might be related to your crouca-, but inflects as croich or cruich, not cruach.  So whatever it might have meant originally, it seems that in the Old and Middle Irish period it wasn't understood as "tumulus". "Bloody crescent" is a reasonable explanation of the name - just because you've got a different one doesn't automatically invalidate the others. But one that occurs to me - "the curved (one) of the stack of corn" sounds like a sickle. Maybe the stories of human sacrifice in exchange for agricultural fertility came from a play on the alternative meanings of crúach? --Nicknack009 19:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The meaning of the name

message: The article mentions Samhain falling on November 1st and that it later became Halloween. Halloween is from Old English "All hallows' eve", and is the day before All Saint's Day, November 1st. So either Samhain was on November 1st, and didn't become Halloween but instead became All Saint's Day, or it fell on October 31st and became Halloween. Which is it?
== Rewrite begun ==
I've had a go at the complete rewrite that's been requested, with reference to all mentions in medieval Irish literature. Despite what the article previously said, there's no reference to Crom in Tírechán's Life of Patrick. I've rewritten the archaeology section, partly for style, partly because it's not universally agreed that the Killycluggin Stone is in fact Crom, and I've taken out all references to it being a phallic symbol - just look at this photo of the replica, there's no way on earth that's phallic! The section still needs referencing though. I intend to consult two references given (Festival at Lughnasa (Oxford Univ. Press, 1962) by Máire Mac Neill, and "Killinagh Church and Crom Cruaich" by Oliver Davies in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Volume 2, 1939) to find out what information they supplied, and cite them properly. --Nicknack009 00:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'replica' does not really fit the real parts. I don't know what the real stone looked like, but certainly different from the 'replica'. Also I don't know if all pieces have been found, if a thorough investigation of the ground has been done, if remodeling has been attempted in a serious manner. So far all the talk about phallic or not looks like speculation to me. Tomdo08 (talk) 11:30, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

text: "Crooked, blood-soaked" actually. 86.143.130.200 (talk) 17:40, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: More factual inaccuracy

message: I've had a go at the complete rewrite that's been requested, with reference to all mentions in medieval Irish literature. Despite what the article previously said, there's no reference to Crom in Tírechán's Life of Patrick. I've rewritten the archaeology section, partly for style, partly because it's not universally agreed that the Killycluggin Stone is in fact Crom, and I've taken out all references to it being a phallic symbol - just look at this photo of the replica, there's no way on earth that's phallic! The section still needs referencing though. I intend to consult two references given (Festival at Lughnasa (Oxford Univ. Press, 1962) by Máire Mac Neill, and "Killinagh Church and Crom Cruaich" by Oliver Davies in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Volume 2, 1939) to find out what information they supplied, and cite them properly. --Nicknack009 00:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'replica' does not really fit the real parts. I don't know what the real stone looked like, but certainly different from the 'replica'. Also I don't know if all pieces have been found, if a thorough investigation of the ground has been done, if remodeling has been attempted in a serious manner. So far all the talk about phallic or not looks like speculation to me. Tomdo08 (talk) 11:30, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite begun 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I believe that the "Jocelyn" who wrote the Life and Acts of Saint Patrick is Jocelyn of Furness, see also here via archive.org
Marcas.oduinn (talk) 08:07, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Jocelyn of Furness

message: In the eponymous Robin of Sherwood episode, it translates ‘Crom Crúach’ as ‘bloody hunchback’. I don’t know how valid this translation is but it might be worth noting this in the article somewhere.Overlordnat1 (talk) 13:30, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: "Crooked, blood-soaked" actually. 86.143.130.200 (talk) 17:40, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robin of Sherwood