Note 2 — Chapter XII · Race in Folklore and Myth

One has, however, to admit that the same agency may also mar the picture. Since the above was written I have read in Stokes’ Festschrift, pp. 7–19, a very interesting article by L. Chr. Stern, in which he discusses some of the difficulties attaching to the term Tuatha Dé Danann. Among other things he suggests that there was a certain amount of confusion between Danann and dána, genitive of dán, ‘art or profession’—the word meant also ‘lot or destiny,’ being probably of the same origin as the Latin donum, in Welsh dawn, which means a gift, and especially ‘the gift of the gab.’ But it would invert the natural sequence to suppose any such a formula as Tuatha Dé Dána to have preceded Tuatha Dé Danann; for why should anybody substitute an obscure vocable Danann for dána of well-known meaning? Dr. Stern has some doubts as to the Welsh Dôn being a female; but it would have been more satisfactory if he had proved his surmise, or at any rate shown that Dôn has nothing to do with Danann or Donann. I am satisfied with such a passage in the Mabinogi of Math as that where Gwydion, addressing Math, describes Arianrhod, daughter of Dôn, in the words, dy nith uerch dy chỽaer, ‘thy niece daughter of thy sister’: see the Mabinogion, p. 68, and, for similar references to other children of Dôn, consult pp. 59 and 65. Arianrhod is in the older Triads, i. 40, ii. 15, called daughter of Beli, whom one can only have regarded as her father. So for the present I continue to accept Stokes’ rendering of Tuatha Dé Danann as ‘the Folks of the Goddess Danu.’ ↑