What would you do if you found a secret, magical library that allowed you to travel in time and anywhere around the world?
There are a number of versions of the story of Cú Chulainn's birth. In the earliest version of Compert C(h)on Culainn ("The Conception of Cú Chulainn"), his mother Deichtine is the daughter and charioteer of Conchobar mac Nessa, king of Ulster, and accompanies him as he and the nobles of Ulster hunt a flock of magical birds. Snow falls, and the Ulstermen seek shelter, finding a house where they are made welcome. Their host's wife goes into labour, and Deichtine assists at the birth of a baby boy. A mare gives birth to two colts at the same time. The next morning, the Ulstermen find themselves at the Brug na Bóinde (the Neolithic mound at Newgrange)—the house and its occupants have disappeared, but the child and the colts remain. Deichtine takes the boy home and raises him to early childhood, but he falls sick and dies. The god Lug appears to her and tells her he was their host that night, and that he has put his child in her womb, who is to be called Sétanta. Her pregnancy is a scandal as she is betrothed to Sualtam mac Róich, and the Ulstermen suspect Conchobar of being the father, so she aborts the child and goes to her husband's bed "virgin-whole". She then conceives a son whom she names Sétanta.[9]
In Ireland, the Tuatha De Danann, together with Partholon and Nemed, who on some points are the counterparts of the Tuatha De Danaan, have as their rivals the Fomorians. Dagda (Dago-devo-s, "Good God"), king of the Tuatha De Danaan is the Zeus, or Ormazd of Irish mythology; the Tuatha De Danaan, or "folk of the god (devi), (son) of Dana," are none other than the Deva of India, the gods of Day, the Light, and of Life. The Fomore, or Fomorians, who are the adversaries of the Tuatha De Danann, represent in Ireland a mythical group corresponding to the Indian Asura, and the Greek Titans; their chief Bress, Balar, or Tethra, is sprung from a mythical conception, originally identical with that which produced the Greek Kronos, the Iranian Ahriman, the Vedic Yama, King of the Dead, Father of the Gods; Tvashtri, God the Father in the Vedas, and the Vedic Varuna, old Supreme God supplanted by Indra.(H. D'Arbois De Jubainville and Richard Irvine Best, The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology, page 9).
Tethra, chief of he Fomorians, overcome in the battle of Mag Tured (Moytura), becomes King of the Dead in the mysterious region they inhabit across the water (1). So also the Greek Kronos, overcome in the battle between Zeus and the Titans, reigns in the distant Isles of the All-Mighty or the Isles of the Blest, over the dead heroes who fought at Thebes and Troy.(H. D'Arbois De Jubainville and Richard Irvine Best, The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology, page 9).
The name Tuatha De Danann means "folk of the god whose mother is called Dana," genitive Danann or Donand. Dana, nominative Donand in Middle-Irish is elsewhere called Brigit; she is the mother of the three gods who are known sometimes as Brian, Iuchar, and Uar, at other times as Brian, Iucharba, and Iuchair. These three mythical beings are the gods of art and literature - dei dana, or the gods, sons of the goddess Dana, dee Donand.
