| Tuatha De Danaan or Sidhe? Are they one in the same or two seperate entities? |
| It's hard to pin-point an exact time when Faery lore began. Many writers on the subject claim that the people of Ireland and thier Gods before the arrival of the Celts are, in fact, the 'ancestors' of the sidhe. Well some say that the remnants of the Tuatha de Danaan became a race called the Sidhe. I suspect that here we are, in actual fact, talking about two entirely different/seperate races. But more on that later. Lets get back to the traditional story.... It's pretty clear from various writings that the belief in the sidhe is part of the pre-Christian religion which survived for thousands of years and which has never been completley whiped out from the minds of the people of Scotland and Ireland. When the first Celts, the sons of Mil, landed in Ireland, they discovered that the Tuatha De Danaan, the people of the goddess Danu, already had control of the land. The sons of Mil said "No Way"! to that and defeated them in battle driving them 'underground' where it is said they remain today in the hollow hills or sidhe mounds. In the early Irish manuscripts (which were recorded from an earlier oral tradition, he says harking back to the page on Poetic verse) there are quite a few references to the Tuatha De Danaan. In 'The Book of the Dun Cow' and the 'Book of Leinster' this race of people (?) is described as "gods and not gods", meaning that they are 'something in between'. Also the book of the Dun Cow says that "it seems likely to them that they [the Tuatha de Danaan] came from heaven, on account of thier intelligence and excellence of thier knowledge". The hold that the Tuatha De Danaan had on the Irish mind was so strong that the new religion of Christianity could not shift it. In 'The Colloquy of the Ancients' a dialouge which supposedly took place between St.Patrick and the ghost of Caeilte of the Fianna, Patrick is stunne to see a fairy woman coming out of the cave of Cruachan, wearing a green mantle with a crown of gold on her head. Whereas the fairy woman is young and beautiful, Caeilte himself is old and withered. When Patrickl, understandibly shaken by this, makes question of it, Caeilte tells him that: "she is of the Tuatha De Danaans who are unfading.....and I am of the sons of Mil, who are perishible and fade away". The sidhe of the underground mounds are also seen by the Irish as the descendants of the old agricultural gods of the Earth (one of the most important being Crom Cruaich, the Crooked One of the Hill). These gods controlled the ripening of the crops and the milk yields of the cattle, therefore offerings had to be given to them regularly. In the Book of Leinster we see that after thier conquest the Tuatha de Danaan took revenge on the sons of Mil by destroying thier wheat and the goodness of the milk (Sidhe are notorious for this even today). The sons of Mil were thus forced to make a treaty with them, and ever since that time the people of Ireland have honoured this treaty by leaving offerings of milk and butter to the Good People. A feature of the Tuatha De Danaan is that they have distinct tribes, ruled over by fairy kinds and queens in each territory. It seems like the social order of the Tuatha De Danaan is very similar to the old aristocracy of ancient Irish familes, which in itself is a reflection of the ancient Celtic caste system. It's fascinating, to me at least, that many of the Irish refer to the Tuatha as simply "the gentry", on account of thier tall, noble appearance and silvery sweet speech. They have thier own palaces where they feast and play music (I'm all for that) , but also have regular battles with neighbouring tribes. The great fairy hosts seem to be distinctly Milesian, but there are still folk memories of perhaps older pre-Gaelic races and thier gods, in the form of the 'geancanach', a spirit of Ulster, of the 'cluricaun', of Munster. We can't, of course, forget the 'leprechaun', a small creature who is said to know the whereabouts of a pot of gold hidden in local fairy raths. The leprechaun could possibly be a folk memory of a dwarfish race of Fir Bolg people who lived in these raths before the coming of the Celts. Confused? Well, you should be but make note of the mention of the older pre-Gaelic races and thier gods. We shall be taking a quick look at them also later. In the stories of many rural folk a distinction is often made between the sidhe who are seen walking on the ground after sunset, and the 'Sluagh Sidhe', the fairy host who travel through the air at night, and are known to 'take' mortals with them on thier journeys. There are also guardian sidhe of most of the lakes in Ireland and Scotland. These very different catergories of sidhe beings ties in with the testimonies of seers who divide the sidhe into wood spirits, water spirits, air spirits, and so on, the elemental spirits of each place. Lough Gur in County Limerick is a very magickal place where we can meet many of the sidhe kings and quens of Ireland. The lake lies within a circle of low lying hills, but once every seven years it appears as dry land, where an entrance to the Land of Youth may be found. The lake's guardian is known as Toice Bhrean (the lazy one) because she neglected to watch over the well, from which the lake sprang forth. It is believed that once every seven years a mortal meets thier death by drowning in the lake, 'taken' by the Beann Fhionn, the White Lady. If we took a look at the features of the fairy kinds and queens, which we won't do here, we would be able to easily see that they are in fact the old pagan gods and goddesses in 'desguise' who have long been revered by the Irish. I once heard someone say that the Celtic gods of Ireland had long been whiped out, buriedunder the sway of Catholicism. Yet anyone who has been to the Emerald Isle, or listend to her may folk tales can see for themselves that this is very far from being true. The old gods live on in folk tales as the giants of the hill; the Gobhan Saor who built the bridges of Ireland; the Gille Decair, a clown and trickster; the Carl (serf) of the drab coat and many others. The old deities were once worshipped throughout Ireland, but its in the west that they are best remembered now, the east having been more Christianized and anglicised, and subject to more invasions. By contrast, the west of Ireland, to which the native Irish were driven ("to hell or Connaught") has held on longer to thier ancient heritage. So, what have we wound up with? A mixture of tales that appear to mix up the Tuatha De Danaan with a arace of beings known as the Sidhe, or the 'Good Folk', as well as the old pagan gods. To my mind, the Sidhe are distinctly seperate from the Tuatha De Danaan. Do we have *two* types of Faery? Apart from the "Tinkerbell" ones, of course. And, if indeed they ever did exist (which I believe they do-CarrieFaery), do they still now? (he turns once again to catch that fleeting glimpse of a shadow vanishing around the corner):) |
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