CHAPTER III
THE DIVISION OF THE SÍD
CELTIC deities may have been associated in pagan times with hills and pre-historic tumuli, especially those near the Boyne; and within these was the subterranean land of the gods, who also dwelt on distant islands. If this were the case, it would help to explain why mounds were regarded as the retreats of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and why they are still supposed to emerge thence as a kind of fairies. If the folk believed that the old gods had always been associated with mounds, it was easy for the euhemeristic writers to evolve a legend of their having retired there after being defeated by the Milesians.
Within these hills and mounds were their gorgeous palaces, replete with all Elysian joys. These hollow hills were known as síd, a word possibly cognate with Latin sedes, and hence perhaps meaning "seats of the gods"; and their divine inhabitants were the áes'síde, fir'síde, mná síde, "the people [or "men" or "women"] of the síd," or simply "the síde. These are everywhere regarded as the Tuatha Dé Danann or their descendants. Men used to worship the síde, says St. Fiacc's hymn, while the daughters of King Loegaire regarded St. Patrick and his white-robed bishops as áes'síde, appearing on earth.1 In later times the síde were held to be fairies and were called by various names, but these fairies closely resemble the earlier síde, the Tuatha Dé Danann, while they are not necessarily of small stature. In this they are very like the fées of mediaeval French belief—romantic survivals of earlier goddesses.
In some stories the síde are associated both with the síd and
