Irish mythology Irish mythology is the body of myths native to the island of Ireland. It was originally passed down orally in the prehistoric era, being part of ancient Celtic religion. Many myths were later written down in the early medieval era by ...

, ''*Danu'' () is the reconstructed

mother goddess A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or the natural world, ...

of the

Tuatha dé Danann The Tuath(a) Dé Danann (, meaning "the folk of the goddess Danu"), also known by the earlier name Tuath Dé ("tribe of the gods"), are a supernatural race in Irish mythology. Many of them are thought to represent deities of pre-Christian G ...

(Old Irish: "The peoples of the goddess Danu"). Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.

Etymology

The hypothetical

nominative In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...

form of the name, ''*Danu'', is not found in any medieval Irish text, but is rather a reconstruction by modern scholars based on the

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

''Danann'' (also spelled ''Donand'' or ''Danand''), which is the only form attested in the primary sources (e.g. in the collective name of the Irish gods, ''

'' "Tribe of the Gods of Danu"). In Irish mythology, ''Anu'' (sometimes written as ''Anann'' or ''Anand'') is a goddess. She may be a distinct goddess in her own right or an alternative name for Danu, in which case ''Danu'' could be a contraction of ''*di Anu'' ("goddess Anu"). The etymology of the name has been a matter of much debate since the 19th century, with some earlier scholars favoring a link with the

Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...

water goddess Danu, whose name is derived from the

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

root ''*dʰenh₂-'' "to run, to flow", which may also lie behind the ancient name for the river

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

, ''Danuuius'' – perhaps of Celtic origin, though it is also possible that it is an early

Scythian The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centr ...

loanword in Celtic. Linguist

Eric Hamp Eric Pratt Hamp (November 16, 1920 – February 17, 2019) was an American linguist widely respected as a leading authority on Indo-European linguistics, with particular interests in Celtic languages and Albanian language, Albanian. Unlike many Ind ...

rejects the traditional etymologies in his 2002 examination of the name ''Danu'', and proposes instead that ''*Danu'' is derived from the same root as

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

''bonus'' (

Old Latin Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin (Classical la, prīsca Latīnitās, lit=ancient Latinity), was the Latin language in the period before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. It descends from a common Proto-Italic ...

''duenos'') from Proto-Indo-European ''*dueno-'' "good", via a

Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly reconstructed through the comparative method. Proto-Cel ...

nominative singular n-stem ''*Duonū'' ("aristocrat").

In mythology

Danu has no surviving myths or legends associated with her in any of the medieval Irish texts.

Approximate matches ''Anu'' and ''Danand'' in Irish texts

''Cormac's Glossary'', a text that predates the ''Lebor Gabala Erenn'' (below), names the goddess ''Anu'' as the mother of the gods. The closest figure in Irish texts to a ''Danu'' would then be ''

Danand In Irish mythology, Danand or Donann is the daughter of Delbáeth, son of Ogma, (Not to be confused with the similarly named Danu) Danand is the mother of Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba by her own father, who is occasionally given the name Tuireann ...

'', daughter of

Delbáeth Delbáeth or Delbáed (modern spelling: Dealbhaoth or Dealbhaodh) was one of several figures from Irish mythology who are often confused due to the repetition of the name in the mythological genealogies. Name According to the Dindsenchas, the nam ...

. In the ''

Lebor Gabála Érenn ''Lebor Gabála Érenn'' (literally "The Book of the Taking of Ireland"), known in English as ''The Book of Invasions'', is a collection of poems and prose narratives in the Irish language intended to be a history of Ireland and the Irish fro ...

'' (''The Book of the Taking of Ireland''), it is noted the ''

'' get their name from Danand's three sons:

Brian Brian (sometimes spelled Bryan in English) is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world. It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word ...

, Iuchar, and Iucharba. These three are called the "Gods of Dannan".

Welsh parallels

She has possible parallels with the Welsh legendary figure

Dôn Dôn () is an ancestor figure in Welsh legend and literature. She is typically given as the mother of a group known as the "Children of Dôn", including Gwydion, Arianrhod, and Gilfaethwy, among many others. However, antiquarians of the early ...

in the medieval tales of the ''

Mabinogion The ''Mabinogion'' () are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, cre ...

'', whom most modern scholars consider to be a mythological

. However,

's gender is not specified in the ''

'', and some medieval Welsh antiquarians presumed Dôn to be male.

Footnotes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Danu (Irish Goddess) Earth goddesses Irish goddesses Mother goddesses