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.