In our free brochure, The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy, we explain how a centuries-long migration was taking the 10 tribes from the areas of their Assyrian captivity to northwest Europe (be sure to request a copy if you haven’t already).
The principal goddess of pre-Christian Ireland, the mother or ‘nourisher’ of the *Tuatha Dé Danann, the ‘people, tribe, or nation of Ana’.
In *Sanas Cormaic [Cormac’s Glossary] (roth cent.), she is Ana, and Ireland may be known as the ‘land of Ana’.
A prosthetic D- changes Ana, Anu to Dana, Danu; some commentators advise that these forms are later scholarly inventions, while others point out that the name Dana has discrete associations and parallels.
She is most probably the grand- mother of *Ecne, a personification of knowledge and enlightenment.
She may also be the mother of the three sons of *
Tuireann
Brian
*Iuchair
*Iucharba
see OIDHEADH CHLAINNE TUIREANN [The Tragic Story of the Children of Tuireann].
Stories citing her name suggest she appeared in two aspects,
beneficent
maleficent
In the former she gives prosperity to the province of *Munster, as can be seen in the mountains that bear her name, *Dd Chich Anann, ‘The Paps of Ana’, two breast-shaped promontories 10 miles E of Killarney, Co. *Kerry.
In her darker aspects she may be linked with *Aine of *Cnoc Aine near Lough Gur (without etymological connection), as Eleanor Hull asserted in Folklore of the British Isles (1928).
Despite these pagan associations, her name is borne by the virgin St. Ana whose feast-day is 18 January.
The Welsh counterpart of Ana is *Dôn.
See also:
MORRIGAN; MOR MUMAN.
She may be a goddess in her own right or an alternate name for Danu.
The Morrígan as a crow in a 1911 illustration
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View full-sizeDownload The Morrígan or Mórrígan, also known as Morrígu, is a figure from Irish mythology.
The name is Mór-ríoghan in modern Irish before the spelling reform, and it has been translated as "great queen" or "phantom queen".
As her name is often conflated with a number of other goddesses, it is not always clear which figure is being referred to if the name is taken out of context.
A dictionary of Celtic mythology by James MacKillop
A dictionary of Celtic mythology -- James MacKillop -- 1st, 1998 -- IRL Press at Oxford University Press -- 9780198691570 -- 167f884f611943a5bd4da0494e9fce90 -- Anna’s Archive.pdf
38.8 MB
View full-sizeDownload
The Celtic languages, once spoken widely, survived to modern times only on the fringes of Europe:
Ireland
the Highlands of:
Scotland
Wales
Brittany
The mythology of these languages derives first from ancient worship, as observed by classical commentators and as revealed by modern archaeology.
Written traditions came with the introduction of Christianity, whose scribes never worshipped the older gods.
Irish heroic literature, the most extensive in all Celtic languages, embraced four discrete cycles.
Welsh came later with a smaller corpus.
Still less was recorded in Scottish Gaelic, and narratives from:
Cornish
Manx
Breton
survive mostly in oral tradition.
The current volume seeks to list, describe, and provide reliable spellings from both ancient and modern traditions.
Listed are:
kings
queens
warriors
hermits
and saints, some of whom are historical but about whom many legends have accrued, and others who certainly never existed. Included also are archaelogical sites and shrines, such living creatures as the eagle and salmon, as well as concepts such as kingship.
Cross-references exist from other mythologies, such as Classical and Norse, as well as links to the most Celtic of Arthurian figures, such as Merlin.
The dictionary summarizes many lengthy narratives, such as The Mabinogion.
Where possible, entries feature reliable etymologies and many entries have extensive bibliographical notes, including adaptations in literature.
As it explains:
concepts
narratives
the Dictionary also becomes a handbook of early Celtic culture.
While some today equate them with ancient demigods or mythical fairy folk, they were definitely a genuinely historical people.
The word tuath simply means "tribe."
Notice:
"Old Irish ‘tuath,’ Welsh ‘tud’ (people, country), Breton ‘tud’ (people) and Gaulish ‘teuta’ (tribe) all come from Common Celtic towta, from the Indo-European word teuta (tribe)"
Dennis King, Focal an Lae: The Word of the Day in Irish:
"The Dan’ans were a highly civilized people, well skilled in architecture and other arts from their long residence in Greece, and their intercourse with the Phoenicians.
Indeed, it is widely accepted that the Phoenicians established trading outposts or colonies as far away as the British Isles:
"The Phoenicians are believed to have played an important part in spreading the early bronze culture by their trade in tin, which their ships brought to the eastern Mediterranean from Great Britain and Spain at least as early as 1100 BC" ("Industries, Extraction and Processing," Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, Vol 21, 1985, p. 424).
Yet what many often fail to realize is that the ancient maritime power designated as "Phoenicia" was actually an alliance between the city-states of Tyre and Sidon and the nation of Israel—in which Israel was the senior partner.
Tarshish was an ancient port of southern Spain, also known as Tartessus.
It was evidently named after Tarshish, the son of Javan (Genesis 10:4)—Javan (or Yavan) being the name for Greece in the Old Testament.
And the sons of Javan:
Elishah
Tarshish
Kittim
and Dodanim.
As an early Ionian Greek settlement, it was actually an Israelite-Phoenician colony.
ANCIENT SPOOKS: Part III – Link to a spooky past – Library of Rickandria Something to note about Irish Storytelling: Ireland has a rich tradition of “seanchaithe”, or storytellers who passed down legends and stories from generation to generation often preserving our history by word of mouth, especially in the past when literacy was much less common.
This may be a contributing factor as to why there are sometimes different versions of famous mythological stories or different names for characters that appear to be very similar.
It is also a contributing factor to the many different spellings of the Tuatha de Danann.
Along with the transition from a Gaelic or Irish speaking country to English becoming the vernacular, many traditional Irish words were transcribed into English spellings.
Variations such as
the Tuatha de danaan
Tuatha de dannan
thua de Danann
Tuatha dé Danann
Tua de Danann
Tuath de Danann
tuatha Danann
and so forth are examples of this.
While “Tuatha de Danann” is the most correct grammatically, these variations are often used interchangeably.
