Danu

[[File:Danu.jpg|thumb|right|165px|A modern-day statuette of Danu. Unfortunately, most of it, especially at [https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/File:Danu_back.jpg the back], was made up recently.]]
{{paganism}}
'''Danu''' is in [[Ireland|Irish]] [[mythology]] a purported mother [[goddess]] of the {{wpl|Tuatha dé Danann||,}} which includes other deities of the same mythos, such as [[Saint Brigid#The goddess|Brigid]], and has often -by [[Pagan_survivals#Anglo-Saxon_attitudes|Victorian writers]]- been also associated with the land itself, being similar to the [[Greco-Roman mythology|Greek]] goddess {{wpl|Demeter||.}}<ref name=Squire-1905>{{cite book |author=Squire, Charles |date=November 2007 |orig-year=1905 |title=Celtic Myth and Legend, Poetry and Romance |edition=pub. domain reprint |page=34 |isbn=978-137500959-1 |publisher=Forgotten Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kFzOK47NmX0C&dq=Danu+earth+mother+Charles+Squire&pg=PA34 |via=google books}}</ref><ref group=note>"Danu herself probably represented the earth and its fruitfulness, and one might compare her with the Greek Demeter. All the other gods are, at least by title, her children." — Squire (1905)</ref>

The etymology of her name is unclear; some {{wpl|Proto-Indo-European mythology|relate}} her with a pair of [[Hinduism|Hindu]] goddesses of the {{wpl|Danu (Asura)|same}} {{wpl|Dewi Danu|name}} that share with the Irish one a strong link with the waters (rivers, etc.) and to be primordial deities, whose name derive of the [[Indo-European languages|Proto-Indo-European]] word for "to run, to flow", which may also lie behind the ancient name for the river {{wpl|Danube||,}} ''Danuuius'' – perhaps of Celtic origin, though it is also possible that it is an early {{wpl|Scythian languages|Scythian}} loanword in Celtic.<ref>{{cite book |editor=Koch, John |year=2006 |title=Celtic Culture: A historical encyclopedia |publisher=ABC-CLIO |page=569}}</ref>

More recent scholarship rejects the traditional etymologies, and proposes instead that ''*Danu'' is derived from the same root as [[Latin]] ''bonus'' (Old Latin: ''duenos'') from Proto-Indo-European ''*dueno-'' ("good"), via a Proto-Celtic nominative singular n-stem ''*Duonū'' ("aristocrat").<ref>{{cite book |author=Hamp, Eric |year=2002 |contribution=The Dag(h)d(h)ae and his relatives |editor1=Sawicki, L. |editor2=Shalev, D. |title=Donum Grammaticum: Studies in Latin and Celtic linguistics in honour of Hannah Rosen |publisher=Peeters |pages=163–169}}</ref>

Danu has no surviving texts or legends associated with her in the Irish lore that was compiled in the [[Middle Ages]], and parallels with other deities and characters of the Irish mythos as {{wpl|Anu (Irish goddess)|Anu|,}} {{wpl|Danand||,}}<ref>{{cite book |editor=Macalister, R.A. Stewart |year=1941 |title=Lebor Gabála Érenn |language=Old Irish, English |trans-title=The Book of the Taking of Ireland |place=Dublin, IE |publisher=Irish Texts Society / Educational Company of Ireland}}</ref> or from the [[Welsh]] mythos {{wpl|Dôn}}<ref>{{cite book |author=Bartrum, Peter C. |year=1993 |title=A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People in history and legend up to about A.D. 1000 |place=Aberystwyth, Wales |publisher=National Library of Wales |page=230-231}}</ref> have been proposed.

==Today==
Like other Celtic deities such as [[Cernunnos]] or the already mentioned Brigid, Danu is often present in modern [[Neopaganism]], and even more than others from the same mythos, with so little being known of her, she has often been compared as a blank slate into which to project [[The White Goddess|whatever one wants]], including to combine her with other Celtic goddesses, besides Danu's associations with motherhood, fertility, and waters. Modern legends in such regard include one in which her waters nurtured the sacred oak Bile, from which two acorns sprouted giving birth to the deity {{wpl|Dagda}} and the already mentioned Brigid.<ref>[https://journeysinotherworlds.wordpress.com/sacred-art-2/primordial-garden-great-mother-danu-bile-the-sacred-oak/ Primordial Garden: Great Mother Danu & Bile the Sacred Oak]. journeysinotherworlds.wordpress.com.</ref> Others have claimed she's just Brigid with another name despite the latter being considered a daughter of Danu.<ref>[https://www.herstory.ie/mythicwomen/2019/6/19/danu Danu, Great River Goddess]. herstory.ie, 19 June 2019.</ref>

==In popular culture==
Danu appears in the comic {{wpl|Slaine (character)|Sláine}} as the goddess of the Sessair, the tribe to which the protagonist belongs. She's described there as a triple goddess whose aspects are {{wpl|Blodeuwedd||,}} Morrigu (the {{wpl|Morrigan||,}}) and {{wpl|Ceridwen||,}} and being like Nature both nurturing, warm, and delightful but also destructive with her [[druid]]s offering her [[human sacrifice]]s that include to disembowel the victims, even if that's okay for such goddess as they'll go back to the Circle of Life, and be married to the Horned God.<ref>[https://britishcomics.fandom.com/wiki/Danu Danu]</ref>

==External Links==
*{{wpl|Danu (Irish goddess)|That other Wiki's article on her}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Deities]]
[[Category:Folklore]]
[[Category:Ireland]]
[[Category:Paganism]]

Categories: Deities, Folklore, Ireland, Paganism