Fairies are everywhere and seem to get into
pretty much everything. They can be tricksters or guardians, jealous or benevolent. Some of the
oldest fairies of the land are the fae folk of Irish, Welsh, and Scottish Celtic traditions.
These fairies of Celtic traditions trace their origin back to an ancient race of otherworldly
royalty - the Tuatha Dé Danann. As fairy nobility, the Tuatha De Danann were alternatively
seen as gods, monsters, demons, and even the real ancient inhabitants of Ireland.
But where do the Tuatha Dé Danann come from, and how did they become the
ancestors of Ireland’s fairies? I'm Dr. Emily Zarka and this is Monstrum In Gaelic the Tuatha Dé Danann roughly translates
to People or Nation of the Goddess Danu. According to Irish folklorist W. B.
Yeats’ influential folklore collection, Tuatha De Danann were “trooping fairies…'' “fallen angels who were not good enough to
be saved, nor bad enough to be lost.” They played games, held funerals,
and loved music and dance. Although they are known for their
duplicitous nature towards humans willing to help or hurt in seemingly equal
measure. They’re essentially royal, warrior, fairy gods that shapeshift
into whatever form they wish. The Tuatha Dé Danann may or may not be deities in ancient Celtic spiritual practices,
but they are certainly god-like. Not only because of their preternatural
beauty - as shapeshifters they can appear as human-like creatures with
yellowed and wizened faces but their exceptional skills in everything from art
to smithery, magic to poetry set them apart. They are also called “the Ever-Living
Ones,” which suggests their immortality. Seanchaí undoubtedly
related tales of the mysterious beings in oral tradition before
they appeared in written texts, likely in regard to existing beliefs
in Druid power and supernatural magic. But when Christianity arrived in Ireland,
this ancient race of god-like beings had to be conquered, made less powerful than the
Christian God by turning them into more folkloric figures—although the Church seemed
confused about exactly how to do that. For instance, the first written mention of
the creatures appearing in The Book of Armagh, in the 9th-century, refers to the Tuatha
De Danann as “the gods of the earth.” They are said to have descended from heaven
on great clouds, cast out for their knowledge. Yet in the 10th century, Christian scribes
like Eochaid ua Flainn began to question what he called “phantoms,” unsure if
they were of demonic or human origins. Another century later we find the first written
recording of the mythological origins of the Tuatha Dé Dannan in the anonymous 11th-century
CE text Book of Invasions The text collects the so-called history of Ireland
in what we would now refer to as ‘euhemerism,’ which is basically interpreting
myths as real historical events. I’m going to do my best here, but the mythology
is really complicated. So bear with me. This is only a snippet of the whole story, so maybe we’ll explore more of it in our sister
show Fate & Fabled. Get ready to take notes. According to the myth, the Tuatha Dé Danann
arrived on a distant western mountain in Ireland. In some stories they disembark from dark clouds
so large, they caused a three-day eclipse. In other versions, they approach the spot
by sea before burning their ships on land in a fire so great its smoke caused the eclipse. Either way, when the Tuatha Dé Dannan arrived
in Ireland, they found it already inhabited. Occupying the land were the Fir Bolg, humans
once enslaved in Greece, and the Fomorians, a supernatural race considered destructive
deities or demonic bandits—take your pick. Of course, a great battle ensued. The ungodly
powerful Tuatha Dé Danann were victorious, and under their rule came a time of peace and
prosperity. In part because they intermarried with the other preternatural races on the island.
They ruled for 169 years - until the mortal Milesians arrived. Even with their magic, the
Tuatha Dé Danann could not defeat these humans. After the conflict, the surface
of Ireland went to the mortals, the underground or Otherworld
to the “Ever Living Ones.”
The surviving Tuatha Dé Danann fled to their new
home through ancient hills, barrows, and burial mounds called sidhe. These spaces are said to
be doorways for dead souls and the fae alike. As they became more secluded and more
secretive, they increasingly became perceived as less mischievous and more malevolent.
Over time, the royal race of Tuatha Dé Danann blurred with their more broadly categorized
offspring, the “people of the sidhe,” - the Aos sí. These more generalized fairy folk are commonly
called just the Sidhe, a shorthand referring to the earthen mounds the Tuatha Dé Danann and
their descendants use to transport between worlds. As Christianity grew, it’s thought that the belief
in the Aos sí moved further and further away from their ancestors the Tuatha Dé Dannan. Eventually, some even became taxonomized into different subspecies or populations of fairies. Like the leprechaun,
the pooka, and the Dullahan to name a few. Omnipresent in Celtic folklore, the fae folk
appear in many forms and under many names such as the “Other Crowd,” “the
Good People,” or simply “Them.” But they did not disappear. Many believe fae folk
are still there, a “secret civilization” hiding in plain sight in Ireland even today. Commonly,
the Otherworld is perceived as an idyllic mirror version of our own. But that doesn’t
mean the Celtic fae folk can’t be monstrous. Tradition claims that if the Tuatha Dé Danann were
angered they would withhold important resources, like milk and corn, until humans appeased them
with sacrifices of food, humans, and animals. This is one reason offerings of food and
drink are still made to fairies today. Twilight is the time of day
when one is most likely to encounter the Tuatha Dé Danann or the Aos sí. While not everyone encounters them, humans
in transitional states are the most at risk: pregnant women and their babies, nursing
mothers, those starting puberty, and the sick. The Aos sí also happen to be rather fond
of what we would think of as kidnapping. Horses, wildlife, livestock, humans - the
Good People are known to “carry off” lives from the human world. Sometimes they
even switch in a replacement of their own. When humans are swapped, they are said
to be replaced by a changeling weak, sickly fairies that look identical
to the humans they replaced (thanks to those ancestral shapeshifting powers).
While cruel and even violent, they also have a sense of justice and can be incredibly
helpful to humans. To quote Yeats again: “They are good to the good, and evil to the evil.”
Like in the “The Story-Teller at Fault.” A human king’s storyteller
encounters what appears to be a lanky old beggarman with
a wooden leg in his garden. The strange ‘old man’ offers to play a
dice game with the storyteller who agrees to a wager of 100 pieces of gold [they
play on a smooth stone set before them]. The storyteller loses and loses again and
again his wagers becoming more dramatic. From his horses to his hounds, and eventually
even his wife, he loses everything. Finally, the storyteller wages the only thing of value
he has left - his own life. He of course loses. The old man pulls out a long cord and a wand
from his pocket, revealing he is one of the Other People and asks the storyteller what kind
of animal he would like to be turned into. The story-teller chooses a hare, and
without delay, the supernatural being throws the cord around him and strikes him
with a wand, transforming human into hare. Chased by his own hounds the Aos sí takes
pity upon him and turns him back into a human. He even allows the
story-teller to accompany him, unseen, as he tricks more humans
and performs great magical feats.
On his journey, the Aos sí offends
the human king, who orders him hanged. Again and again, the king’s men hang
the creature, seemingly killing him, but every time, he reappears unharmed—with someone
the king values hanging from the gallows instead. The King finally shows the supernatural being
respect, and appeased by his rational decision, the Aos sí restores life to the men he had
killed. And reveals his identity to the story-teller—he is not just any old Aos sí but
Angus of the Bruff, one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. This story is typical behavior of the Tuatha
Dé Danann and their offspring as a whole. Capable of great magic, including transfiguration, Angus is tricky and can be cruel. But he can
also be fair. He reverses all the bad he does, but only when humans act respectfully.
These stories help explain misfortune, illness, economic loss, even death. Performing
small rituals to appease the Good People, ward them off, or ask for their help, gives
humans a sense of control over that which cannot be controlled. It’s comforting in a way.
Perhaps that’s part of the reason why stories of the Aos sí continued to
thrive even as their ranks changed. Renaissance artists, for one, were fond of
depicting them. And in the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries, the “Irish Renaissance”
or “Celtic Revival'' meant that many of the older tales were finally written down.
Irish folklore collectors like Yeats, Thomas Crofton Croker, Lady Gregory, and Jeremiah
Curtin preserved fairy stories and other tales of the supernatural in print, making it possible
for greater circulation of the narratives. Just look at all the fairy stories out there even now. Today, while fewer and fewer Irish people will claim they believe in fairies, many still
know of the superstitions and stories of the Aos sí and the ancient Tuatha Dé Danann.
Oral storytelling through narrative and song was, and still is, crucial to Irish culture. Go to any
good pub in Ireland and that will become apparent very quickly. While the magical, supernatural
fae folk seem best suited for the pages of your favorite fantasy novel, they are still
undoubtedly a very real part of Irish history.
