Tuatha de Dannan

Dave Postles (pot@leicester.ac.uk)
Fri, 20 Oct 1995 08:05:44 +0100

The Tuatha de Dannan are a mythic, underscore mythic, people, so right away
the "truth" about them becomes problematic. They are featured in a series of
early Irish hero tales, largely the first and second battles of Magh Tuiredh
and the learned (never finalized) medieval academic construct of the medieval
Irish past known as the Leabhar Gabhala Eireann (The Book of Invasions). Of
late the Tuatha De Dannan are most evident in Science Fiction, especially
Julian May. Anyhow, if you want a brief but reliable text, try Proinsias
MacCana, "Celtic Mythology". Back in the 1946 Thomas O'Rahilly wrote an
extremely influential book entitled "Early Irish History and Mythology" in
which he tried to link the story of the Book of Invasions to archaeological
and linguistic evidence of the Celtic past in Ireland. He was wrong, as it
turns out, but his book will still give you the remaining medieval traditions
of the Tuatha De. Good luck with this can of worms!
Dorothy Africa
africa@hulaw1.harvard.edu

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