Conan's Crom

Conan's Crom
This quest began with the writings of Robert E Howard. To many it may seem counter-intuitive to begin looking for an obscure Irish Heathen god in the work of an american pulp fiction writer from the early-twentieth century , but it is from an invented swear word of Howard's most famous creation-Conan the Barbarian-that most people first hear the name of Crom, and I was no different. This therefore, was the natural place to start looking.

While many may not be familiar with the books of Robert E Howard, they will undoubtedly know the name of his most famous creation: Conan the Barbarian. This hulking, muscle bound thug from a bygone age has had several turns in the limelight from Howard's original writing to 1970s comic that President Barak Obama collects to the movies that made Arnold Swarzenegger a household name.

Conan , the brooding barbarian was from the frozen northern wastes of the fantasy world of Howard's imagination: a pseudo-historical version of Europe set during the "Hyborian Age", supposedly 14000-10000 BC. He comes from a place called the Cimmeria, whose inhabitants are survivors of Atlantis. Crom is the God of the Cimmerians. The one word that springs to mind about Conan's Crom is "grim"-an appropriate term in more ways than one. To say he is disinterested is an understatement. Crom is a god who lives on a frozen mountaintop. He takes little interest in the folk who say they worship him, indeed, at one point Conan comments that its best not to attract his attention, because he will just bring down trouble and doom*. Great. No one prays to him and he just seems to sit on his mountain "brooding" and watching what goes on in the world below. Supposedly the only gift he ever gives mortals is at birth, when he bestows the grit to survive and persevere through hardship. After that you are pretty much on your own. There is no sense praying to him either: He views asking for help as a sign of weakness. All in all, his purpose seems to be to re-enforce what a bunch of double-hard, self reliant bastards the Cimmerians are. Robert E Howard was a Texan, after all.

Grim was one of the names of Norse God Odinn, and by the time we get to the Conan films, Crom seems to have more akin with Odinn than any prehistoric Irish deity. Conan talks of Crom laughing at him and throwing him out of Valhalla. This Crom is slightly removed from Howard's, though the sentiment is smiler.

All very stoical. Yet there are elements here that give me pause. Take the mountain dwelling god: Ben Crom, the "mountain of Crom" is in the Mourne mountainsof County Down. I climbed it when I was a teenager. On a Duke of Edinburgh expedition throughout the mountains we decided to take a "short cut" put he side of the reservoir that bears the same name, not realising until we started that the counter lines on the map were so close together we had thought they were smudged. I still remember my burning calf muscles as we ascended that ridiculously steep mountainside, sometimes having to resort to hands and knees, clinging on to clumps of heather to avoid toppling backwards to a bouncing, bone crunching fate. St. Patrick is supposed to have fought Crom and his devils on another mountain in the West of Ireland. People climb Slieve Croob in the Dromara Hills on "Crom Sunday". Clearly there was a connection between mountains and the historical version of Conan's deity. Was this a co-incidence?