The Etymology of Tuatha Dé Danann

What’s in a name?

Potentially the missing piece in our Tuatha Dé Danann divinity puzzle.

Now, it is widely known and fairly widely accepted that Tuatha Dé Danann translates to the “tribe of the goddess Danu,” or the “people of the goddess Danu,” or the “folk of the goddess Danu.”

Here’s the thing though: 

Tuatha Dé Danann wasn’t their original name.

In the oldest texts, they’re simply the Tuatha Dé: people of the gods, or tribe of the gods. 

Christian scribes also referred to them as cenéla dé (god-kindreds) or fir dé (god-men) in Irish, as well as plebes deorum, “god-folk” in Latin.

Instead of coming right out and calling these supernatural characters full-fledged gods, the scribes made a point of hedging. The Tuatha Dé are very often god-somethings, and very rarely just gods.

(Pssst. You can watch a video adaptation of this post right here. Text continues below.)

As Christians, the scribes likely felt pressure to downgrade the divine status of the Tuatha Dé. They were ostensibly in the business of promoting a single god, after all.

Which makes it all the more interesting that they started using the name Tuatha Dé Danann, which in and of itself invokes the name of another deity, the goddess Danu.

FYI: it seems the scribes did this to help avoid confusion with the Israelites, whom scribes also referred to as the Tuath Dé, or “People of God.”

But where did this Danu goddess come from?

Possibly the Danube River, it turns out. Or rather the names of the Irish goddess and Europe’s second longest river and the Vedic water goddess Danu could all possibly stem from the same Proto-Indo-European root word meaning “to flow.”

Or, another theory to consider:

There is no Danu at all. 

She was made up. 

Actually, we know for a fact that her name was made up, because get this: Danu doesn’t appear anywhere in any medieval Irish text. 

Instead, it is the hypothetical nominative form of Danann (i.e., linguists looked at the name Danann, which they assumed to be possessive, and worked backwards to come up with Danu).

And while Danu is sometimes equated with the Irish goddess Anu or Ana, who is described in Sanas Cormaic (Cormac’s Glossary) as the “mother of the gods of Ireland,” that doesn’t give us much more to go on—Anu is a barely there character in the myths.

That being said, Anu certainly has a significant presence in the Irish landscape in the form of the Paps of Anu, which are a pair of breast-shaped mountains in County Kerry long believed to have been named for the goddess.

Another theory, this one courtesy of Celticist Sharon Paice MacLeod, holds that the “Danann” in Tuatha Dé Danann is actually rooted in the Old Irish word for an artistic skill, dán.

I like this theory for a lot of reasons.

First, while the goddess Danu/Anu doesn’t play a central role in the lives of the Tuatha Dé Danann as recorded in the myths, arts and crafts and music absolutely do. They are part and parcel to Tuatha Dé Danann culture. 

Remember our pal Lugh, a.k.a. Lugh Lamhfada? Well, two of his other epithets are Ildánach, meaning “skilled in many arts,” and Samildánach, meaning “equally skilled in many arts.”

See, the whole reason the Tuatha Dé Danann agree to listen to Lugh in the first place and end up following him into battle against the Fomorians is because he is able to impress them so much with his artistic skills.

The man can do everything: he is a master craftsman, carpenter, smith, harpist, poet, historian, sorcerer, and the list goes on.

In the myths, possessing such skills is positioned as the pinnacle of personal achievement in Tuatha Dé Danann culture. Hence, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think their tribe would be named for them.

Which leads me to my next point:

Some of the Tuatha Dé Danann already are named for them.

Specifically, according to Carey, medieval texts occasionally refer to some of Tuath Dé as the clann Eladan, or “children of art.”

What’s more, three of the craftiest members of the tribe, Goibniu, the blacksmith, Credne the goldsmith, and Luchta, the carpenter, are collectively known as the trí dé dáno, or “three gods of craft.”

And to Ellis’s earlier point, such designations were reflected in the lives of actual ancient Irish people, amongst whom skilled workers were known as the aes dána, or “people of skill.”

Finally, let’s not forget the definition given in the opening stanzas of the Lebor Gabála Érenn:

“Those are the Tuatha Dea – gods were their men of arts, non-gods their husbandmen.”

It’s like the scribes are telegraphing us the answer from the past: the Danann addendum to Tuatha Dé is a reference to those divine “men of arts,” not some obscure parent deity.

Thus, I propose the following meaning for Tuatha Dé Danann:

The tribe of the gods of art.

Or the tribe of the skillful gods.

Or something like that. Feel free to come up with better ones in the comments.

Now, as to whether those supernaturally skilled members of the tribe do actually qualify as gods, I’m leaning, based solely on the textual evidence available, no. 

I’m siding with Carey on this one. They’re not gods, they’re something else. 

For me, their antics are what push me in the non-divine direction—the Tuatha Dé Danann don’t spend their days pulling cosmic strings or carrying the sun across the sky or making volcanoes erupt.

Instead, they’re tricking each other, sleeping around with each other, transforming each other into animals, battling rival tribes, and they’re wielding weapons so powerful it makes one wonder—are the weapons the real heroes here? (Or villains, depending on one’s perspective.)

That’s why to me, the Tuatha Dé Danann, as they appear in the myths, more closely resemble a race like the Elves from The Lord of the Rings. 

Which makes a lot of sense given that J. R. R. Tolkien based his Elves on the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Think about it:

A race of super powerful, intelligent beings who arrive in a mist and become famous (infamous?) for their skills as craftspeople, and who battle a bunch of ugly monsters born beneath the earth led by a dude with a giant eye. And despite fighting for a land they’ve called home for thousands of years, they leave it behind because the age of men is upon them?

Yep, that about sums it up.

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Want to learn about the darker side of Irish mythology? Check out…

Samhain in Your Pocket

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Irish Monsters in Your Pocket

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Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy

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More the listenin’ type?

I recommend the audiobook Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes by Philip Freeman (narrated by Gerard Doyle). Use my link to get 3 free months of Audible Premium Plus and you can listen to the full 7.5-hour audiobook for free.

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