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 THE ANCIENT GODS

thousands of years ago long, long before the time of Fionn mac Cumall and Iris heroes, of whom the following stories are written—there lived in Ireland a wise and beautiful race of people, who were called the Tuatlia de Danann. So wise was this race that the people who lived in after ages called them gods, and these were the gods whom Fionn and his warriors loved and invoked in time of need; and because some of their names occur very frequently in the stories I will tell you a little about a few of them.

Just as we of these later ages have fathers and mothers, so the gods had a father and mother, and the name of the father was Dagda, and that of the mother Dana. The gods were able to do all kinds of wonderful things; they could make themselves visible