Danu- Celtic PrimordialPrimordial"Mother of the Gods"

The Name That Survived

No Irish tale tells of Danu directly. Her name appears only in the collective: Tuatha Dé Danann, "Peoples of the Goddess Danu." The Lebor Gabála Érenn records their coming to Ireland from four cities in the north, their victories over the Fir Bolg and the Fomorians, their retreat into the síd mounds when the Milesians conquered the land. Through all of this, the goddess who gave them her name never appears. Whatever songs once told of her were lost before the monks began writing.

The Paps of Anu

What survives of her is stone. Two mountains in County Kerry are called Dá Chích Anann, "The Paps of Anu," their rounded summits visible from much of Munster. The Metrical Dindsenchas identifies them with the goddess. Cormac's Glossary, compiled around 900 CE, describes Anu as mater deorum Hibernensium, "mother of the gods of Ireland," and calls her déa in t-sónusa, goddess of plenty, who nourished the land so well that her name became a byword for abundance. Whether Danu and Anu are two names for the same goddess or two figures whose traditions merged, the Irish sources treat them as one.

The Children Underground

When the Milesians conquered Ireland, the Tuatha Dé Danann withdrew into the síd mounds, the hollow hills and ancient burial cairns scattered across the landscape. Manannán mac Lir raised the féth fíada around them and hid them from mortal sight. They became the aes sídhe, the people of the mounds. But they kept their mother's name. Even underground, invisible, they remained the people of Danu.