Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, there lived in Ireland a race of tall, beautiful people. They loved music, poetry and sport and they were called the de Danann [people of Dana] because they descended from the goddess Dana
The Tuatha Dé Danann are thought to derive from the pre-Christian deities of Ireland
The Tuatha Dé Danann (which means the people of Danu) arrived in Ireland bearing with them their stone of destiny called the Lia Fail which they placed on the mound of Tara and ever after the rightful kings of Ireland were chosen when it called out
The Tuatha Dé Danann ("People of the Goddess Danu") were one of the mythical races who settled in Ireland before the arrival of the Milesians, the ancestors of modern Gaels. The Dananns were descendants of the goddess Danu. Her son Dagda was their most powerful leader of the Dananns.
The Tuatha Dé Dananns were a race of deities as well as race of heroes. They were skilled in art and science, poetry and magic.
They were said to come from four mythical cities: Falias, Gorias, Finias and Murias. When they came to live in Ireland, the Dananns received four magic treasures or talismans, one from each city. Before the Tuatha Dé Danann migrated to Ireland, they had learned all their skills from for four wizards/bards (druids) from these four cities. Morfesa from Falias, Esras from Gorias, Semias from Murias and Uiscias from Findias
There are many who treat this race as fiction and as "stories," but there are Irish seers who today still say they see the Sidhe.
"The term (Sidhe), is always applied in old writings to the palaces, courts, halls, or residences of those beings which in ancient Gaedhelic mythology held the place which ghosts, phantoms, and fairies hold in the superstitions of the present day." In modern Irish tradition, 'the People of the Sidhe' or Sidhe, refer to the beings themselves rather than to their places of habitation. They are often described as gods of the earth or dei terreni, as in the Book of Armagh; and since it was believed that they, like the modern fairies, control the ripening of crops and the milk-giving of cows, the ancient Irish rendered to them regular worship and sacrifice, just as the Irish of today do by setting out food at night for the fairy-folk to eat.
