Creating Dreams

Despite their defeat, the Tuatha De still retained the power of their magic arts and they deprived the Gaels of their corn and milk until they forced them to come to terms. It was then decided that the country should be divided into two parts, the lower half going to the Tuatha De and the upper half to the Gaels. Thus the Tuatha De retired underground and the Daghdha assigned to each of their chiefs a sidh or “fairy mound,” and throughout the countryside such mounds are still regarded as the special dwelling places of the fairy people. Already in the late seventh century a clerical biographer of St. Patrick refers to the “sidh or gods who dwell in the earth”, thus evidently taking taking for granted the tradition that placed the native gods under the earth’s surface.