R, ruis, the dwarf elder in Ogham. The rochat, or ... - Rodney Mackay

king Ragalach was assassinated on its grounds.
In times past Connaught, Ireland, was alternately
called Cruachan from the fame of this residence of the
semi-mythic goddess-queen. Notice the implications of the
word crogan , a drink of blood taken to inspire the bloodfury
which the Norse called the berserker-rage. Rathcrogan
has the further sense of “penfold of the banshee,” or
“death-maiden.” “The manner of the house was this: There
were seven companies in it from the fire to the wall. all
round the house. Every (circular) compartment had a face of
bronze. The whole was composed of beautifully carved yew
wood. Three strips of bronze were laid in at the door of each
compartment. The house from here out was built of pine. A
covering of oak shingles was what it had externally. Sixteen
windows were in it, each with a shutter of bronze, and bars
of bronze were made to close each shutter. Ailill and Mebd’s
compartment was at the centre of the house and it had a
doorway front of silver and gold. There was a wide band of
silver on the side of it that rose to the ridge of the house,
and reached all around it from one side of the door to the
other.” It is said that “the place was surrounded by five
concentric ramps, three of which may still be seen.”
Confers with the next.
RÀTH CRUACHAN, the famous western royal-residence of
the witch-queen Mebd and her consort Ailill in County
Connaught. As we have seen, access to the west usually
involved an imrama. While the water route was the most
commonly used we have noted souterrains, which offered
immediate “temporal displacement” from one world to the
other. The most famous cave-entrance was Ràth Cruachan,
the “Fortress of the Hip, or Hump,” which was once the
personal property of Mebd. The name Cruachan was
frequently given as an alternate name for Connacht
province, and the old hill itself was described by Christian
scribes as the “Gate of Hell.”
The fact that the hill is also termed Ràthcróghan ties
it more firmly to the old warrior queen, for the word cró is