with Balor and Elatha, ruled over Erin at the coming of the Tuatha Dé Danann. From a phrase used in the story of Connla's visit to Elysium, "Thou art a hero of the men of Tethra," M. D'Arbois assumes that Tethra was ruler of Elysium, which he makes one with the land of the dead. The passage, however, bears a different interpretation, and though a Fomorian, Tethra, a god of war, might be regarded as lord of all warriors.192 Elysium was not the land of the dead, and when M. D'Arbois equates Tethra with Kronos, who after his defeat became ruler of a land of dead heroes, the analogy, like other analogies with Greek mythology, is misleading. He also equates Bres, as temporary king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, with Kronos, king of heaven in the age of gold. Kronos, again, slain by Zeus, is parallel to Balor slain by his grandson Lug. Tethra, Bres, and Balor are thus separate fragments of one god equivalent to Kronos.193 Yet their personalities are quite distinct. Each race works out its mythology for itself, and, while parallels are inevitable, we should not allow these to override the actual myths as they have come down to us.
Professor Rh^ys makes Bile, ancestor of the Milesians who came from Spain, a Goidelic counterpart of the Gaulish Dispater, lord of the dead, from whom the Gauls claimed descent. But Bile, neither a Fomorian nor of the Tuatha Dé Danann, is an imaginary and shadowy creation. Bile is next equated with a Brythonic Beli, assumed to be consort of Dôn, whose family are equivalent to the Tuatha Dé Danann.194 Beli was a mythic king whose reign was a kind of golden age, and if he was father of Dôn's children, which is doubtful, Bile would then be father of the Tuatha Dé Danann. But he is ancestor of the Milesians, their opponents according to the annalists. Beli is also equated with Elatha, and since Dôn, reputed consort of Beli, was grandmother of Llew, equated with Irish Lug, grandson of Balor, Balor is equivalent to Beli, whose name is regarded by Professor Rh^ys as related etymologically to Balor's.195 Bile, Balor, and Elatha are thus Goidelic equivalents of the shadowy Beli. But they also are quite distinct personalities, nor are they ever hinted at as ancestral gods of the Celts, or gods of a gloomy underworld. In Celtic belief the underworld was probably a fertile region and a place of light, nor were its gods harmful and evil, as Balor was.
On the whole, the Fomorians came to be regarded as the powers of nature in its hostile aspect. They personified blight, winter, darkness, and death, before which men trembled, yet were not wholly cast down, since the immortal gods of growth and light, rulers of the bright other-world, were on their side and fought against their enemies. Year by year the gods suffered deadly harm, but returned as conquerors to renew the struggle once more. Myth spoke of this as having happened once for all, but it went on continuously.196 Gods were immortal and only seemed to die. The strife was represented in ritual, since men believe that they can aid the gods by magic, rite, or prayer. 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. In the north where they learned magic, they dwelt in four cities, from each of which they brought a magical treasure—the stone of Fal, which "roared under every king," Lug's unconquerable spear, Nuada's irresistible sword, the Dagda's inexhaustible cauldron. But they are more than wizards or Druids. They are re-born as mortals; they have a divine world of their own, they interfere in and influence human affairs. The euhemerists did not go far enough, and more than once their divinity is practically acknowledged. When the Fian Caoilte and a woman of the Tuatha Dé Danann appear before S. Patrick, he asks, "Why is she youthful and beautiful, while you are old and wrinkled?" And Caoilte replies, "She is of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who are unfading and whose duration is perennial. I am of the sons of Milesius, that are perishable and fade away."197
After their conversion, the Celts, sons of Milesius, thought that the gods still existed in the hollow hills, their former dwellings and sanctuaries, or in far-off islands, still caring for their former worshippers. 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; in this continuing the old tradition that Fomorians were hostile and the Tuatha Dé Danann beneficent and mild.
The mythological cycle is not a complete "body of divinity"; its apparent completeness results from the chronological order of the annalists. 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; the heroic cycles, magical and romantic as they are, belong far more to earth and time.
CHAPTER V.
THE TUATHA DÉ DANANN
The meaning formerly given to Tuatha Dé Danann was "the men of science who were gods," danann being here connected with dán, "knowledge." But the true meaning is "the tribes or folk of the goddess Danu,"199 which agrees with the cognates Tuatha or Fir Dea, "tribes or men of the goddess." The name was given to the group, though Danu had only three sons, Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharbar. Hence the group is also called fir tri ndea, "men of the three gods."200 The equivalents in Welsh story of Danu and her folk are Dôn and her children. We have seen that though they are described as kings and warriors by the annalists, traces of their divinity appear. In the Cúchulainn cycle they are supernatural beings and sometimes demons, helping or harming men, and in the Fionn cycle all these characteristics are ascribed to them. But the theory which prevailed most is that which connected them with the hills or mounds, the last resting-places of the mighty dead. Some of these bore their names, while other beings were also associated with the mounds (síd)—Fomorians and Milesian chiefs, heroes of the sagas, or those who had actually been buried in them.201 Legend told how, after the defeat of the gods, the mounds were divided among them, the method of division varying in different versions. In an early version the Tuatha Dé Danann are immortal and the Dagda divides the síd.202 But in a poem of Flann Manistrech (ob. 1056) they are mortals and die.203 Now follows a regular chronology giving the dates of their reigns and their deaths, as in the poem of Gilla Coemain (eleventh century).204 Hence another legend told how, Dagda being dead, Bodb Dearg divided the síd, yet even here Manannan is said to have conferred immortality upon the Tuatha Dé Danann.205 The old pagan myths had shown that gods might die, while in ritual their representatives were slain, and this may have been the starting-point of the euhemerising process. But the divinity of the Tuatha Dé Danann is still recalled. Eochaid O'Flynn (tenth century), doubtful whether they are men or demons, concludes, "though I have treated of these deities in order, yet have I not adored them."206 Even in later times they were still thought of as gods in exile, a view which appears in the romantic tales and sagas existing side by side with the notices of the annalists. They were also regarded as fairy kings and queens, and yet fairies of a different order from those of ordinary tradition. They are "fairies or sprites with corporeal forms, endowed with immortality," and yet also dei
