The gate of the year

Two hills located in the County Kerry (South-West Ireland), known as the “Paps of Anu” (Dá Chích Anann), were regarded as visible manifestation of the goddess Anu, or Dana, perhaps since Prehistoric times, because cairns had been built on the tops of the two breast-shaped hills, as to suggest stone nipples. The name of the goddess derives from an ancient Celtic root, dan, signifying “knowledge”. Some texts identified her as the daughter of the god of abundance Dagda, and thus as a goddess of fertility and the earth.
Dana’s name appears above all in the name of the divine race inhabiting anciently the Irish island, the Tuatha Dé Danann (“the People of the goddess Dana”, who believed to descend from her). This beings fought a long time against other invading peoples, the monstrous Fomorians and the fierce Fir Bolg. With the arrival of the “Sons of Míl”, the ancestors of modern Irishmen, the Tuatha Dé Danann let them take the surface of the land, and they retired in the misty islands out to sea, at the bottom of lakes and inside the mounds which are scattered all through the landscape. They turned themselves into the fairy people, the ancient owners of the land who, though they were invisible, continued to interact with humans, manifesting themselves in various ways, especially at the times of the year in which the boundaries between the worlds seemed to fade, and which constituted the most prominent festivities of the Celtic calendar (Monaghan 2004).

[Image: http://www.geolocation.ws/v/P/42690601/the-paps-mountains/en]




Female Symbols

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Two hills located in the County Kerry (South-West Ireland), known as the “Paps of Anu” (Dá Chích Anann), were regarded as visible manifestation of the goddess Anu, or Dana, perhaps since Prehistoric times, because cairns had been built on the tops of the two breast-shaped hills, as to suggest stone nipples. The name of the goddess derives from an ancient Celtic root, dan, signifying “knowledge”. Some texts identified her as the daughter of the god of abundance Dagda, and thus as a goddess of fertility and the earth. Dana’s name appears above all in the name of the divine race inhabiting anciently the Irish island, the Tuatha Dé Danann (“the People of the goddess Dana”, who believed to descend from her). This beings fought a long time against other invading peoples, the monstrous Fomorians and the fierce Fir Bolg. With the arrival of the “Sons of Míl”, the ancestors of modern Irishmen, the Tuatha Dé Danann let them take the surface of the land, and they retired in the misty islands out to sea, at the bottom of lakes and inside the mounds which are scattered all through the landscape. They turned themselves into the fairy people, the ancient owners of the land who, though they were invisible, continued to interact with humans, manifesting themselves in various ways, especially at the times of the year in which the boundaries between the worlds seemed to fade, and which constituted the most prominent festivities of the Celtic calendar (Monaghan 2004). [Image: http://www.geolocation.ws/v/P/42690601/the-paps-mountains/en]