for a Heracles, would remind one of the Greek myth which makes the god of that name assist Atlas in bearing the burden of the superincumbent world; but it must be confessed that the groupings alluded to are open to the suspicion of having been made in some measure under the influence of classical ideas, including possibly that of the Greek mysteries.
There remains the associate of Cernunnos on the Saintes monument, where she is represented sitting in the ordinary way near to the cross-legged god: she has a cornucopia, which implies that she was regarded there as a benignant goddess; but beyond that, one knows nothing about her, not even whether she should be regarded as identical with the goddess standing on the other face of the stone. But with one or both of these goddesses may perhaps be compared a divinity that figures in the Irish and Welsh pedigrees of the gods. Her Irish name was Danu or Donu, genitive Danaun or Donann[1] (also written with nd for nn). She is treated as a goddess par excellence, in Irish dea, of which the genitive had various forms, such as dé, dée, déi, déa and dae. So the Irish gods, who are reckoned her descendants, are promiscuously called Tuatha Dé Danann, 'the Tribes of (the) Goddess Danu,' Tuath Déa or Déi, 'the Tribe of (the) Goddess,' and Fir Déa, 'the Men of (the) Goddess.' In Welsh her name takes the form Dôn, and the gods descended from her are accordingly called the Children of Dôn. The more important of them will come under our notice as we go
- ↑ The consonantal declension was always liable to be replaced, so we have Donand and Danann used in the nominative, whence a new genitive, Danainne, was sometimes made. See O'Donovan's note, Four Masters, A.M. 3450 (i. p. 23), A.D. 1124 (ij. p. 1020).
