in Early Ireland
OI croch represents a ‘pre-lenition’ early Latin borrowing (cf. MW
crog) widely attested in Old Irish glosses with the meaning ‘the Cross’, ‘the
Crusification’. The Latin word crux was adopted in its oblique form crucem into
both Goidelic and British with o-vocalism of the root. In original pre-Christian
Latin the word covered a semantic field ‘torture, hanging, execution, death penalty’.
The Latin term represents a supposed Mediterranean wondering word
adopted in Rome after Punic wars together with the practice of crucifixion.
In Early glosses the word (as well as its weak verb crochaid) remains closely
connected with Christianity, but later develops extra meanings departing from
different sides of the semantic complex ‘Crucifixion’: ‘to torture, to execute’ in general and especially –‘to hang’, later – ‘to hang an object’. In early Law
tracts croch means one of the penalty practices: ‘hanging’ and presumably loss
its semantic connection with New Testament tradition. This semantic shift could
be interpreted by existence of the later Latin doublet loanword: cros ‘a cross’
a form of the cross’, later ‘a defense, a coverage’. In the “Language of the
Glosses” (VII–VIII c.) the later loanword cross (from Lat. crux) means
1. a cross as a geometrical figure 2. so called ‘high crosses’ of Irish monasteries
3. Crosfigil a special kind of prayer standing in a position of body with arms
outstretched in imitation of the Cross. In later Lives the word cros is used as the
name of a specific ‘magic’ gesture. In folk tradition as well as in modern Irish
phraseology cros represents a symbol the saint’s and Christ’s protection. The
same meaning also can be found in traditional folk charms.
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