Danu
Tuatha De Danaan
The Tuatha Dé Danaan according to tradition as recorded in the Book of Invasions (Lebor Gabála Érenn) were the fifth group to ‘settle’ in Ireland. The name translates as ‘the people of the goddess Danu’.
The pre-Hellenic Greeks were known as the Danai and were, according to an Egyptian source, the descendants of Danaus. Furthermore, the Danai have been linked with the legendary Tuatha dé Danaan of Ireland as well as the Shardana of Sardinia.
Egerton Sykes thought that the Tuatha de Danaan were refugees from Atlantis, an idea he expressed in his 1949 edition of Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis.
Another popular belief is that the Tuatha dé Danaan were descendants of the Hebrew tribe of Dan. Walter Baucum and in particular Yair Davidiy have written extensively on the people of Dan and their possible migration routes. Leonardo Melis also links the Shardana with the lost tribe of Dan as well as the Tuatha Dé Danaan.
In The Megalithic Odyssey [1797] Christian O’Brien proposed that an order of Sumerian ‘Sages’ brought advanced knowledge to Egypt, Britain and Ireland and further afield. Along the way, they or their leaders are remembered by different names, Osiris, Tuatha dé Danann, Druids or in Mexico as Quetzalcoatl!
>David Hatcher Childress referred to the Tuatha de Danaan in Lost Cities of Atlantis, Ancient Europe & the Mediterranean [620], listing a range of theories, often conflicting, relating to their origins. Unexpectedly, Robert Charroux was of the opinion that they were Mayans from Central America [p425]. Childress relates that Jacques Valleé proposed that the de Danaan were ‘interdimensional fairy-folk that arrived in glowing UFOs’! He also quotes the equally entertaining comments of N.L. Thomas, who wrote that ‘the Tuatha were a people possessed of magic wonders, the supreme artists of wizardry, who came to Ireland, not by ship, but descended from the northern sky [1952.81]. Childress, apparently beguiled by this added “it is fascinating to think that the Tuatha de Danaan arrived by airships, rather than boats. This may be merely a legend, or perhaps it actually chronicles the landing of ancient airships in Ireland.” I think it is far more likely that they arrived on flying pigs.<