ssed _badb_ (_IT_ i. 820).

[189] _IT_ i. 521; Rh[^y]s, _HL_ 274 f.

[190] _RC_ xii. 95.

[191] _RC_ xii. 101.

[192] See p. 374.

[193] D'Arbois, ii. 198, 375.

[194] _HL_ 90-91.

[195] _HL_ 274, 319, 643. For Beli, see p. 112, _infra_.

[196] Whatever the signification of the battle of Mag-tured may be, the
place which it was localised is crowded with Neolithic megaliths,
dolmens, etc. To later fancy these were the graves of warriors slain in
a great battle fought there, and that battle became the fight between
Fomorians and Tuatha De Dananns. Mag-tured may have been the scene of a
battle between their respective worshippers.

[197] O'Grady, ii. 203.

[198] It should be observed that, as in the Vedas, the Odyssey, the
Japanese _Ko-ji-ki_, as well as in barbaric and savage mythologies,
_Maerchen_ formulae abound in the Irish mythological cycle.

CHAPTER V.

THE TUATHA DE DANANN

The meaning formerly given to _Tuatha De Danann_ was "the men of science
who were gods," _danann_ being here connected with _dan_, "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 Don 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 Cuchulainn 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
(_sid_)--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
De Danann are immortal and the Dagda divides the _sid_.[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