Tuatha Dé Danann

“ But the people of the goddess Danu are too obviously mythical to make it worth while to seek any standing-ground for them in the world of reality. In their superhuman attributes, they are quite different from the Fir Bolgs. In the epical cycle it is made as clear that the Tuatha Dé Danann are divine beings as it is that the Fir Bolg, the Fir Domnann, and the Fir Gaillion stand on exactly 77the same footing as the men of Ulster. ”

“ Why, then, do hostile Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Danann intermarry? This happens in all mythologies, and it probably reflects, in the divine sphere, what takes place among men. Hostile peoples carry off each the other's women, or they have periods of friendliness and consequent intermarriage. Man makes his gods in his own image, and the problem is best explained by facts like these, exaggerated no doubt by the Irish annalists.
The Tuatha Dé Danann, in spite of their euhemerisation, are more than human. ”

“ The gods were a superhuman race, the síde, helping men on occasion; and this influenced the official view, for euhemeristic documents tell how, after their defeat, the Tuatha Dé Danann retired to subterranean palaces, emerging now and then to help or to harm mortals. Even the Milesians were not yet free of their power, especially that of Dagda. ”

“ This tradition had its place with that which made them a race of men conquered by the Milesians—the victory of Christianity over paganism and its gods having been transmuted into a strife of races by the euhemerists. The new faith, not the people, conquered the old gods. The Tuatha Dé Danann became the Daoine-sidhe, a fairy folk, still occasionally called by their old name, just as individual fairy kings or queens bear the names of the ancient gods. The euhemerists gave the Fomorians a monstrous and demoniac character, which they did not always give to the Tuatha Dé Danann ”

“ It is also said, in the Book of the Dun Cow, that wise men do not know the origin of the Tuatha De Danann, but that ‘it seems likely to them that they came from heaven, on account of their intelligence and for the excellence of their knowledge’. ”

“ When the Tuatha de Danann first became invisible to men, the Dagda gave me this pleasant hillside to dwell in, and many years we lived here in peace. But one day when I was away from home, there came a giant Fomorian from the Island of Torach, who seized my daughter, and would have carried her away with him to his island of rocks. ”

“ In the earliest stratum of Gaelic mythic narrative we find beings who at some former time had occupied divine rank, but whose relations to man are substantially, as therein presented, the same as those of the modern fairy to the modern peasant. The chiefs of the Tuatha de Danann hanker after earthly maidens; the divine damsels long for and summon to themselves earthly heroes. Though undying, very strong, and very wise, they may be overpowered or outwitted by the mortal hero. ”

“ Among other things he suggests that there was a certain amount of confusion between Danann and dána, genitive of dán, ‘art or profession’—the word [646] meant also ‘lot or destiny,’ being probably of the same origin as the Latin donum, in Welsh dawn, which means a gift, and especially ‘the gift of the gab.’ But it would invert the natural sequence to suppose any such a formula as Tuatha Dé Dána to have preceded Tuatha Dé Danann; for why should anybody substitute an obscure vocable Danann for dána of well-known meaning? Dr. Stern has some doubts as to the Welsh Dôn being a female ”

“ This was the more marvellous, as she was yet but an infant, and could say no word even of Erse, the only tongue she had heard.
At this portent, he knew that Aodh had spoken seeingly. Truly this child was not of human parentage. So he, too, kneeled, and, bowing before her, asked if she were of the race of the Tuatha de Danann, or of the older gods, and what her will was, that he might be her servant. ”

“ We may see at a glance how thoroughly pagan is the conception of the happy region here depicted, though [126] assuredly lacking neither in beauty nor refinement, in which respects the Tír Tairngire need fear no comparison with the Elysium of the Greek poets, which it so strongly resembles. It is equally evident that the lord of this Island Paradise, Manannán Mac Lír, is the Tuatha Dé Danann counterpart of the Fomorian Tethra, king of the dead, who sends his messengers in the guise of beautiful women—ἄγγελοι in all literalness—to call his subjects unto him in his realm beyond the ocean. ”

“ Most of the names of the chief gods have already been mentioned—Dagda or Eochaid Ollathair, who in one place is called an "earth god" to the Tuatha Dé Danann, and also their "god of wizardry"—probably a deity of fruitfulness and fertility; Oengus; Nuada; Ogma, god of poetry; Goibniu, god of smiths; Creidne, of braziers; Diancecht, of medicine; Manannan, son of Ler; Midir; Bodb Dearg; Lug, perhaps a sun-god; and other lesser divinities. Of goddesses there are Anu or Danu; Brigit, goddess of poetry and primitive culture ”

“ All mythologies echo the strife. The Babylonian Marduk and the gods battle with Tīamat and her brood; gods and Titans (or Jötuns) , Rê' and 'Apop, fight, and those hostile to gods of light and growth, gods dear to man's heart, are represented in demoniac guise. If Tuatha Dé Danann and Fomorians were both divine but hostile groups of the Irish Celts, the sinister character of the latter would not be forgotten by the annalists, who regarded both with puzzled eyes and sought vainly to envisage them as mortals. ”

“ According to the 'Four Masters,' the Tuatha de Danann had been extinct for nearly 2000 years when we find Crimthann marrying a princess of that race, and one of sufficient influence to induce him to adopt what appears literally to have been the family burying-place of the Dagdha for that of himself and his race ”

“ The gods are also immortal, though in myth we hear of their deaths. The Tuatha Dé Danann are "unfading," their "duration is perennial."517 This immortality is sometimes an inherent quality; sometimes it is the result of eating immortal food—Manannan's {159} swine, Goibniu's feast of age and his immortal ale, or the apples of Elysium. ”

“ As the Celtic gods were local in character, and as groups of tribes would frequently be hostile to other groups, the Fomorians may have been local gods of a group at enmity with another group, worshipping the Tuatha Dé Danaan.
The strife of Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Danann suggests the dualism of all nature religions. Demons or giants or monsters strive with gods in Hindu, Greek, and Teutonic {58} mythology, and in Persia the primitive dualism of beneficent and hurtful powers of nature became an ethical dualism—the eternal opposition of good and evil. ”

“ The latter class includes many distinct hierarchies and lower orders. Some, like the highest of the Tuatha De Danann, who are the same in character as the gods of the Greeks and Hindoos, are [Pg 493] superhuman; others are the souls of the dead; while many are subhuman and have never been embodied in gross physical bodies. These last include daemons (incorrectly regarded by Christian and other theologies as being in all cases evil, and called demons) ”

“ Fragments of other myths are found in the Dindsenchas; others exist as romantic tales, and we have no reason to believe that all the old myths have been preserved. But enough remains to show the true nature of the Tuatha Dé Danann—their supernatural character, their powers, their divine and unfailing food and drink, their mysterious and beautiful abode. In their contents, their personages, in the actions that are described in them, the materials of the "mythological cycle," show how widely it differs from the Cúchulainn and Fionn cycles.198 "The white radiance of eternity" suffuses it ”

“ Out of the numberless stories of the Fenian exploits it is hard to choose examples. All are heroic, romantic, wild, fantastic. In many of them the Tuatha Dé Danann play prominent parts. One such story connects itself with an earlier mythological episode already related. The reader will remember [246] how, when the Dagda gave up the kingship of the immortals, five aspirants appeared to claim it; how of these five—Angus, Mider, Lêr, Ilbhreach son of Manannán, and Bodb the Red—the latter was chosen ”

“ Oscar and Diarmaid were wounded, and by Donn's advice, Fionn captured the gods' physician and caused him to heal their wounds, after which hostages were taken of the Tuatha De Danann, so that MIdir's sons might live in peace.46 Caoilte told this to St. Patrick centuries after, and he had scarce finished, when Donn himself appeared and did homage to the saint. The old gods were still a mysterious people to the compilers or transmitters of such tales, but they were capable of being beaten by heroes and might be on good terms with saints. ”

“ From all that we have said it clearly appears that carefully as the Christianised Irish strove to euhemerise their pantheon, they were unable to succeed. If, as Keating acknowledges, Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba were gods, then à fortiori much more so must have been the more famous Lugh, who compassed their death, and the Dagda, and Angus Óg. Keating himself, in giving us a list of the famous Tuatha De Danann has probably given us also the names of a large number of primitive Celtic deities—not that these were at all confined to the De Danann tribes. ”

“ The souls of the righteous appear sometimes as white birds, and those of the wicked as ravens, in Christian documents—a conception which is probably of pagan origin.17
Finally, to show how the memory of the Tuatha Dé Danann and their powers survived into later centuries the story of O'Donnel's Kern may be cited. ”

“ From the being itself light seemed to stream outwards in every direction; and the effect left on me after the vision was one of extraordinary lightness, joyousness, or ecstasy.
‘At about this same period of my life I saw many of these [Pg 62] great beings, and I then thought that I had visions of Aengus, Manannan, Lug, and other famous kings or princes among the Tuatha De Danann; but since then I have seen so many beings of a similar character that I now no longer would attribute to any one of them personal identity with particular beings of legend ”

“ They are also brought into connection with the unhistoric Tuatha Dé Danann; they fight with them {147} or for them; they have amours with or wed their women; and some of the gods even become members of the Fian band. ”

“ He would then lay the smooth end on them, so that he would reanimate them in the same time."
"Wonderful is the description," said Medb.
"Great is the person whose description it is," said Cu Roi.
"What, then; who is he?" said Ailill.
"Not hard to tell," said Cu Roi. "The great Dagda son of Ethliu, the good god of the Tuatha De Danann. To magnify valor and conflict he wrought confusion upon the host in the morning this day; and no one in the host sees him."
. . .
"Here before them, to the east, outside," said Crom Deroil, "I saw a band of their rabble. ”

“ In one passage Dagda is invisible, and Midir said, "We behold and are not beheld." When Manannan came to fetch his consort Fand, none saw him but the goddess, and when Lug arrived to assist Cuchulainn, he was unseen by the hero's foes. Divinities sometimes hid in a magic mist, as the Tuatha Dée Danann did on arriving in Ireland; they could appear to such mortals as they pleased, remaining unseen by others. Gods were probably not regarded as spiritual beings. ”

“ Nevertheless, they learned from him that more than a hundred years back, and maybe thrice a hundred, the Tuatha-De-Danann had fought a last great battle with the Milesians and had been utterly defeated. They were now a dispersed and hidden people, some deathless, others living to the thousand and one years of the old-world folk, and some with a new and terrible mortality upon them. As for Bove Derg and all the Fairy Host, the wild thistle waved over their nameless graves. Lir lay beneath the grass outside his great dun of Shee Finnaha. ”

“ Dano, dear youth, let the words of our Message sink deeply into your heart, for you are the chosen herald, who first shall proclaim the new Faith to the children of Ento. Be courageous, be faithful, and in accordance with the measure of your courage and your faithfulness shall be your consciousness that ever by your side will walk your spirit bride, your other Self, Valloa̤. Dano, Dano, are you strong enough, are you courageous enough to give to your sorrowful people the Message of the new faith? ”

“ Then Andûmana̤ wrathfully forbade His Messengers to hold further communion with His sinful children. In the beginning there was no death, but for their sins Andûmana̤ decreed that henceforth death should serve as a constant reminder that the Creator is greater than the created. We being the created cannot, without sin, question Andûmana̤'s laws, hence, dear Dano, we should not only willingly submit to the will of our Creator, but as obedient children, we should humbly revere the hand that smites us. ”

“ THE GODS IN EXILE But though mortals had conquered gods upon a scale unparalleled in mythology, they had by no means entirely subdued them. Beaten in battle, the people of the goddess Danu had yet not lost their divine attributes, and could use them either to help or hurt. ”

“ It was then in the deadly sickness of fear that there came to Dan the dread of miscarrying forever if he should die now. He seemed to see what it was to die unredeemed. Not to be forgiven, but to be forever accursed, to be cut off from the living that live in God's peace?—the dead darkness of that doom stood up before him. Life had looked very dear to him before, but what now of everlasting death? He was as one who was dead before his death came. Live he could not, die he dared not. ”