DAR CROM !
by Aonghus
How many times have you been at an event and called upon a foreign deity to express surprise, amazement, or disgust? Well if your like me, you've done it more times than a Saxon's gotten intimate with his favorite goat.
Being of a pagan Celtic persona, this is an inappropriate exclamation.Obviously its more appropriate to call upon our own gods to express ourselves. So what is appropriate?
DAR CROM!
What you're actually saying is "By Crom". This is in reference to one of the more controversial of Celtic gods; Crom Cruach. Loosely translated, Crom means "bent" or "stooping", and Cruach means "hard".
Crom Cruach was supposedly worshiped by human sacrifices, and legend says that there was a golden idol carved in his image at Magh Slecht,. St. Patrick is said to have destroyed this idol.
Most people will recognize Crom as Conan the Barbarian's patron god. While some may feel a little silly because of this bear in mind that Robert E. Howard got his idea from the Celts, in fact the name Conan is actually an Irish name meaning "little hound".
By far the biggest obstacle in using this phrase is overcoming the calling upon you-know-who instinctively. Last Beltaine you may have heard me trying to correct myself mid-sentence and saying stuff like: "JESUS CHR....I mean ... DAR CROM !" I think at one point I even said "JESUS CROM". With practice I'm sure we'll all get the hang of it.
As a cultural note, when calling upon the gods, it is said that a Celt would use a descriptive nickname rather than the actual name of the god.This was to keep your enemies from learning the true names of your gods and preventing them from invoking your own gods against you.