The Fairies Of The Turbet Island Mounds

The Story for this piece:

The Firbolg tribe which I spoke about earlier are believed to have been

eventually overthrown by the next invaders the Tuatha Dé Danann.

In Geraldine Mc Caughrean’s story “ The Harp of Dagda” she explains so

beautifully how,

“ They came from the four great cities in the sky - Falias and Gorias, Finias

and Murias. They had studied every kind of knowledge at the feet of the

citie’s four wise kings, but their destiny was to live on earth a while, a tribe

like no other. And the home they chose - for were they not the wisest of the

wise?- was Ireland. Their chieftain was Dagda, and they were like giant gods

to the wild men of the bogs and peat lakes. They were the Good Men, the

Dananns.

With them they brought the greatest treasure from each of the four celestial

cities: a stone from Falias, a sword from Gorias, a spear from Finias and from

Murias, the bottomless cauldron.

The death of days and the tides of time wrought a change in men called

Good. When the world grew old and sour and villainous, the tribe of Good

diminished - oh not in wisdom or skill but in actual physical stature. They

shrank, just as the goodness of the world shrank and they changed their

dwelling place once again, from the earth to the places beneath the earth.

They lived in the green mounds of the lonely places and changed - as the

grub changes to a butterfly - into the fairies of Ireland.

And they took with them their treasures : the sword, the cauldron, the spear

and the magic harp of Dagda”

Story taken from Geraldine Mc Caughrean’s “ The Harp of Dagda, an Irish

Myth - Silver Myths and Legends of the World

I feel the story of the Tuatha Da Dannan, the KnowMe dolls and the Irish

fairies all represent Mother Nature’s cry for help. These narratives ask us

humans to stop and pay attention to the vulnerability of the earth, especially

in current times.