Who is Danu?

Written by Reed Brown

Who is Danu?

In neo-pagan circles, one may hear about the Tuatha De Dannan which are a tribe of gods from Irish myth. Their name is commonly translated as "the people of Danu." Danu is considered the mother of the Tuatha de Dannan and a primordial Goddess. However, there is no Danu found in Irish myth. The name Danu is mistakenly reconstructed from the name Danann. There is a figure in myth, Danand, who authors equate with Danu.

Other Danu Figures

According to Lebor Gabala Erenn, Danu is not the entire tribe’s ancestor; they are descendants of the biblical Noah. The writers of the manuscripts Lebor Gabala Erenn is based on were Christians who were creating a history, albeit a faux history, for Ireland. They altered the myths to fit a Christian lens. Lebor Gabala Erenn says the Tuatha took their name from three specific gods who were “the three gods of Dana,” their mother being Danand. With this in mind, there is a “Danu” figure, mother of three gods.

On the other hand, in the Welsh tales of the Mabinogion, there is a goddess, Don, who is a mother to several deities, not just three male gods like the Irish Danand. In Hinduism, there is a goddess named Danu who gives birth to a whole race of beings, called the Danavans, enemies to the devas. The etymology of Danu is of Indo European origins and means river or waters.

Deities of the same etymology or function are not the same deity necessarily, but if this goddess is the same figure repeated in different cultures, perhaps Danand is Danu or Danu can be constructed as the mother of the tribe of Irish gods. A writer and scholar of Celtic myth, Peter Berresford Ellis, does just this.

A Constructed Danu

Many authors uphold that Danu is the ancestral mother of the Tuatha De Dannan. Despite the name Danu being a linguistic construct and the Lebor Gabala Erenn saying the Tuatha take the name from Danand, Ellis claims there was an Irish Danu known as "the divine waters of heaven."

He does this in his two works, The Druids, and, Celtic Myths and Legends. First, he removes the Christian influence from the Irish origin stories by discarding the biblical ancestry. Second, he looks toward the ancestry of other pantheons, using the etymology, Indo European background, and Hindu concept of Danu to infer an Irish Danu’s existence.

Ellis also cites different cultures’ mother goddesses and their spiritual relationships with rivers, and especially the Celts' relationship with the Danube river, to strengthen this claim. Celtic people lived around the Danube river which is said to have the same etymology as the name Danu. However, in the Roman pantheon, it is said the Danube is associated with a male deity, Danuvius, related to Danu’s etymology.

In his book Celtic Myths and Legends, Ellis creates a new origin myth inspired by the Celts’ sister cultures. In this tale, Danu, as the waters of heaven, comes and brings the barren earth to life. An oak tree, the god Bile, grows. They form a union, and Danu births the Dagda and Brigid.

Danu vs. Anu

An article published by Harvard, “Mater Deorum Hibernensium: identity and cross-correlation in early Irish mythology" by Sharon Paice MacLeod, examines The Glossary of Cormac, a source that predates Lebor Gabala Erenn.

MacLeod states that Danu is in fact Anu, the namesake for the Paps of Anu, two breast-like hills in Ireland. In The Glossary of Cormac, the Tuatha De Dannan are known as the “aes side,” people of the sidhe mounds, or are referenced as the people of the goddess. Anu is named as Mater Deorum Hibernensium: mother of the gods of Ireland.

MacLeod suggests the three gods of Danand from the Lebor Gabala Erenn were really the “tri dee dana,” the three gods of skill, and they were mistakenly turned into the three gods of Danand in linguistic confusion. She says the name Danand/Dannan was not found before the Lebor Gabala Erenn. She suggests the name is a corrupted form of domnann, the name of another tribe of legend.

MacLeod tells us the Anu name is associated with wealth and abundance, connecting her to the land. Anu has been known as a name for Ireland and the land’s embodiment. In various sources, people often associate Anu as Danu and call the paps by the name Danu as well. This is debated and argued by various sources. It has been suggested the writer of the Glossary possibly imposed his region’s mother goddess, Anu, onto the goddess of the Tuatha. If MacLeod’s argument and sources are correct, this may provide a possible foundation for this notion of Danu being Anu.

Conclusion

Perhaps the Tuatha are the people of the earth goddess Anu who was turned into Danand and then into Danu. Through the Indo European etymology of Danu and Hindu influences, she became a goddess of the waters. Or perhaps she is outright Danu, the goddess of the waters like the Hindu counterpart. Either way, there is a mother goddess figure who this tribe is associated with.