The Tuatha De Danann, therefore, are the Sidhfir, or Fairies, of Irish tradition. But the Tuatha De Danann have been already referred to in these pages.[214] "Who were the Feinne of tradition, and to what country and period are they to be assigned?" This is the question put by Dr. Skene. And after considering the various Irish traditions relating to "the Feinne," his conclusion is this: "The Feinne, then, belonged to the pre-Milesian races, and were connected, not only with Ireland, but likewise with Northern and Central Scotland, England and Wales, and the territory lying between the Rhine and the Elbe. [This last-named territory, being "Lochlin," ought perhaps to be held as including the whole of Scandinavia.] Now, there are just two people mentioned in the Irish records who had settlements in Ireland, and who yet were connected with Great Britain and 'Lochlin.' These were the people termed the Tuatha De Danann, and the Cruithne.... These two tribes were thus the prior race in each country [Ireland and North and Central Scotland]. Both must have been prior to the Low German population of Lochlan. The Cruithne were the race prior to the Scots [Gaels] in North and Central Scotland, and the Tuatha De Danann the prior colony to the Milesian Scots in Ireland. The Feinne are brought by all the old historic tales into close contact with the Tuatha De Danann; a portion of them were avowedly Cruithne; and if they were, as we have seen, in Ireland, not of the Milesian race, but of the prior population, and likewise connected with Great Britain and the region lying between the Rhine and the Elbe, the inference is obvious, that, whether a denomination for an entire people or for a body of warriors, they belonged to the previous population which preceded the Germans in Lochlan and the Gaels in Ireland and North and Central Scotland. This view is corroborated by the fact, that in the old poems and tales the Feinne appear, as we have said, in close connection with the Tuatha De Danann. They are likewise connected with the Cruithne.... In answering, then, the preliminary questions of who were the Feinne? and to what period do they belong? we may fairly infer that they were of the population who immediately preceded the Gaels in Ireland and in North and Central Scotland."[215]
The Feinne, then, belonged to the population which comprised the Cruithne and the Tuatha De Danann, or Sidhfir, or Fairies. But the Cruithne, as we have seen,[216] were the Picts of history, and the "Pechts" of Scottish folk-lore. Thus, the Feinne were of the population of "Pechts and Fairies." It has already been shown that to draw a hard and fast line between these two divisions is impossible. Nevertheless, there seems to have been once some kind of distinction between the two. And if the Feinne must necessarily have been "Pechts or Fairies" (as the above conclusions of Dr. Skene's seem to warrant), then they appear to have belonged to the former division. Or, in other words, they were Cruithne rather than Tuatha De Danann. It may be remembered that in such a Fenian ballad as the Dan an Fhir Shicair, or Song of the Fairy Man,[217] the Feinne are represented as associating with the Sidhfir (say Tuatha De Danann), but yet not as identical with them. Again, the same dubiety was seen in the references to the hoards of treasure obtained by the ninth-century Danes from "the hidden places belonging to Fians or to Fairies,"[218] in the valley of the Boyne.
The Brugh of the Boyne is several times spoken of by Professor Eugene O'Curry in his "Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History."[219] For example, as an illustration of the use of the word sidh to denote "a hall or residence" of the sidh-folk Mr. O'Curry cites a stanza "taken from an ancient poem by Mac Nia, son of Oenna (in the Book of Ballymote, fol. 190, b.) on the wonders of Brugh (or Brog) na Boinne (the Palace of the Boyne), the celebrated Hall of the Daghda Mór, who was the great king and oracle of the Tuata Dé Danann. This poem," continues Mr. O'Curry, "begins: 'A Chaemu Bregh Brig nad Breg' ('Ye Poets of Bregia, of truth, not false,') and this is the second stanza of that poem:
'Fegaid in sid ar for súil
Is foderc dib is treb rig,
Ro guíd laisin Dagda ndúir,
Ba dinn, ba dun, amra bríg.'
'Behold the Sidh before your eyes,
It is manifest to you that it is a king's mansion,
Which was built by the firm Daghda;
It was a wonder, a court, an admirable hill.'"[220]
In the same work we read of an incident, placed in the time of St. Patrick and subsequent to the Battle of Gawra, when the conquered "Fianns" were only represented by a few straggling survivors, one of whom was the well-known Caeilté (as the name is here spelt). "Saint Patrick, with his travelling missionary retinue, including Caeilté we are told, was one day sitting on the hill which is now well known as Ard-Patrick, in the county of Limerick." Questioning Caeilté as to the former name of this hill, St. Patrick learned that it had been called Tulach-na-Feiné, and obtained also an anecdote suggested by it. "One day that we were on this hill," says Caeilté, speaking of himself and his brother "Fianns," "Finn observed a favourite warrior of his company, named Cael O'Neamhain, coming towards him, and when he had come to Finn's presence, he asked him where he had come from. Cael answered that he had come from Brugh in the north (that is the fairy mansion of Brugh, on the Boyne).[221] 'What was your business there?' said Finn. 'To speak to my nurse, Muirn, the daughter of Derg,' said Cael. 'About what?' said Finn. 'Concerning Credé, the daughter of Cairbré, King of Kerry (Ciarraighe Luachra),' said Cael?" And so on. At another place[222] the dialogue goes thus:—"'Where hast thou come from, Cael?' said Finn. 'From the teeming Brugh, from the North,' said Cael. ('As in Brug Braenach atuaid,' ar Cael)." And so on, to the same purpose as in the other version. In this story, then, we see the "Fians and Fairies" associated with each other, as in The Ballad of the Fairy Man; and the nurse of one of the Fians is described as living in the "brugh" which was built by the celebrated chief of the Tuatha De Danann, and was afterwards tenanted by his son, Angus Og.
Among Mr. O'Curry's notes there is this reference to Angus Og:[223] "In the Dinnsenchus it is stated that 'Eóin Bailé' were Four Kisses of Aengus of Brugh na Boinné (son of the Daghda Mor, the great necromancer and king of the Tuatha Dé Danann), which were converted by him into 'birds which haunted the youths of Erinn.' This allusion," remarks Mr. O'Curry, "requires more investigation than I have yet been able to bestow on the passage." Whatever the "Eóin Bailé" may have been, or have been assumed to be, this passage brings into prominence the fact that the people known as Tuatha De Danann, or Fir-Sidhe, were regarded by other races as possessed of supernatural power, and were indeed actually revered as gods at one era. As the biographer of St. Patrick says of him:—
"He preached threescore years
The Cross of Christ to the Tuatha [people] of Feni.
On the Tuatha of Erin there was darkness.
The Tuatha adored the Side."[224]
(Here, of course, the Fir Sidhe, or people of the "sidhs" are denoted; the word being sometimes used to indicate the dwellers, sometimes the dwellings.) And the exalted character of the inmates of the Brugh of the Boyne is indicated also in a verse of a Gaelic poem entitled Baile Suthain Sith Eamhna, which dates back to the year 1457 at least. The subject of the verse referred to is thus apostrophized:—
"Thou, the son of noble Sabia,
Thou the most beauteous apple rod;
What god from Bru of the Boyne
Created thee with her in secret?"[225]
This exalted position "the little people" seem to have retained in some measure long after their subjugation, and even the household drudge or "brownie" was feared for his alleged "supernatural" power. The fact that the common people of Ireland at the present day speak of the inhabitants of the "brughs" or "sheeans" as "the gentry," may also be regarded as a witness to the superior rank once held by that caste whose mound-dwellings are exemplified by this "Brugh of the Boyne" and others in its neighbourhood.