interpreted; but though Brian is represented as a valiant warrior and skilled as druid and poet, one fails to see why he and his brothers should be assigned a place of pre-eminence in this respect above many others of the Tuatha é Danann; and I should be inclined therefore to give the word dán, in connection with the former, its other meaning of destiny or fate,[1] and to regard the brothers, whose number three reminds one of Mider's three birds and their cognates (p. 332), as the messengers of fate and death. This would explain why they are also found mentioned as the three sons of Danu, the goddess of death, from whom the Tuatha Dé were collectively so called. They are sometimes further made to be par excellence the three gods of the Tuatha Dé, and to give that group its common name,[2] whereas the rôle ascribed them in the stories extant fail completely to justify such a distinction: this applies to Brian even when due account is taken of the wonderful feats attributed to him as a warrior, engaged in procuring the eric he had to pay Lug; and as to his brothers, they are associated with him mostly as dummies. Moreover, no trace of any such pre-eminence as that here suggested can be detected in the oldest story known to us to mention Brian, namely, that of Cúchulainn wooing Emer daughter of the Fomorian chief, Forgall Monach. There Brian is
- ↑ As, for instance, in the Bk. of the Dun, 39a: 'bói indan dóib orba do gabáil.' The Welsh form is dawn, 'talent, genius,' and commonly 'the gift of oratory.' The Welsh and Irish words are nearly related to the Latin donum; and it is needless to say that the name of the goddess Danu, genitive Danann, has nothing to do with them, though something approaching to a confusion of these words may be found evidenced in a conjecture repeated by Keating, p. 122.
- ↑ See this view quoted by Keating, p. 120.
