Note 9 — Chapter XXIII

Jubainville translates Tuatha De Danann by "tribes of the goddess Dana." Danann is the genitive of Dana, and Dana is called the "mother of the gods," but she is not a mother of the bulk of the De Danann race, so that Jubainville's translation is a rather venturesome one, and the Old Irish themselves did not take the word in this meaning; they explained it as "the men of science who were as it were gods." "Tuatha dé Danann, i.e., Dee in taes dána acus andé an taes trebtha," i.e., "the men of science were (as it were) gods and the laymen no-gods."