called in Irish mythology the _Tuatha De Danann_,
described from at latest 1100 A.D. as _aes sidhe_, "the folk of the
[fairy-] hillock;" the name for fairies in Ireland now is "the Sidhe."[77]
Originally, it may be, the _aes sidhe_ were not identified with the _Tuatha
De Danann_; and before the twelfth century the Sidhe were not associated
with the Celtic belief in "a beautiful country beyond the sea," a happy
land called by various names--Tir-nan-Og (the land of youth), Tir Tairngire
(the land of promise)--which has now become "fairy-land." In the earliest
heroic legends the _Tuatha De Danann_ assist or protect mortal champions,
and fall in love with mortal men and maids; but with the spread of
Christianity (as might be expected) they lost many of their previous
characteristics.[78]

To look back for a moment, we must note that so far we have touched no
belief later than the fifteenth century, and already we have seen enough
blending of various superstitions and legends to give our fairies a very
mixed ancestry. Classical mythology, Celtic heroic sagas and northern Eddas
in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, Saxo the Danish historian in
the twelfth, and a series of romances, running through
Celtic-Breton-French-English languages from the twelfth to fifteenth
centuries--all combine to alter or add to the popular conception of
fairies. Celtic Mider is of human stature, beautiful, powerful, dwelling
beneath the earth; he attempts to carry off a mortal bride. Teutonic
Alberich is a dwarf, presumably not handsome, but well disposed to mortals.
But when we come to _Huon of Bordeaux_ we find Oberon's characteristics are
derived from varying sources. He himself describes[79] to Huon, in a
fantastic romance-style, which attempts to associate him with as many
classic heroes as possible, his parentage and birth:--

"I shall show thee true, it is Julius Caesar engendered me on a lady of the
Privy Isle ... the which is now named Chifalonny [Cephalonia] ... after a
seven year Caesar passed by the sea as he went into Thessaly whereas he
fought with Pompey; in his way he passed by Chifalonny, where my mother
fetched him, and he fell in love with her because she showed him that he
should discomfit Pompey, as he did." We are almost supplied with the date
of Oberon's birth.

He proceeds to narrate how all the fairies but one were invited to his
birth, and that one, in anger, said that when he was three years old he
should cea