Rogers 35
The People of the Goddess Danu are a many-skilled group of deities who conquer the
inhabitants of Ireland, the Firbolgs, but are then enslaved by later invaders, the Fomorians.
Eventually, with the rise of the mortal men, called Milesians, the deities retreat into the sidh-
mounds, which become their dwelling places. The entire Mythological Cycle that recounts the
stories of the Tuatha Dé Danaan follows their rise and their fall, but neither their beginning nor
their end. Lugh and Manannan, the Dagda and the Morrigan, Midir and Nuada “were wafted
into the land in a magic cloud” (Rolleston 69), and when they eventually lose their dominance
over Ireland to the Milesians, they neither perish nor run away. They relocate to the Otherworld.
In Rolleston’s account, he describes the shifting existence of these supernatural beings: “The
People of Dana do not withdraw. By their magic art they cast over themselves a veil of
invisibility, which they can put on or off as they choose,” and this new realm of the Tuatha Dé
Danaan is, one might imagine, the same as that from which they first came: “there they hold their
revels in eternal sunshine, nourished by the magic meat and ale that give them undying youth
and beauty” (96). While the Tuatha Dé Danaan do spend a certain period on a mortal plane, they
are never confined to a set time in any of those places they choose to live, whether in the clouds
of heaven, the fields of Ireland, or the distant, yet immanent Otherworld. The Celtic gods
embody eternity. When they make the Otherworld their home, they attach to that realm
timelessness and eternal life and youth.
Similar to the stories of the Greeks and Romans, in the Irish legends, the Celtic deities
have many interactions with the mortals who take up residence in their lands. In the stories of
Cù Chùlainn, Fionn, and many of the other heroes, the cyclic nature of Celtic mythology
emerges. Time and death are very real, but flexible, changeable, and often avoidable. One of the
most beautiful stories in the Ossianic Cycle is that of Fionn’s son Ossian who wins the heart of